By L. Walter Sherman, Superintendent
My interest in nuts dates back to the turn of the century when, as a boy in high school, I delighted in gathering wild nuts for my own use. I knew of several black walnut trees bearing very fine nuts and also one excellent hickory. These were near my home in northern Ohio.
After my school days were over, I married and went to Oklahoma, where I found the most miserable wild nuts imaginable. However, I stayed but a short time and returned to my native state where the wild nuts were reasonably good. In 1935, I made a trip to California and visited the Persian walnut orchards at harvest time. As if that were not enough to convince me that it would be worth my while to do what I could in behalf of the nut industry, the Agricultural press of the time published several intriguing accounts of Persian walnuts growing in and near Toronto, Ontario which had been brought there by Rev. Paul C. Crath from the Carpathian Mountains of Poland.
My constant talk about hardy strains of Persian walnut prompted friends to tell me of several plantings already growing in northern Ohio with more or less success. I promptly obtained scions and undertook to graft a number of these, but I had the usual ill-success of a beginner. I failed in attempts to top work trees and had no better results with bench grafting although I began early in the season and continued my efforts till the time arrived for planting the trees. I stored the grafted material in a cool apple storage house from the time they were grafted until they were planted. Then somehow I learned that walnut wounds would not callous over except at relatively high temperatures. Accordingly, I placed my next bench-grafted trees in a warm greenhouse, where growth started at once. This marked my first successful grafting of black walnut. Later, Mr. W. R. Fickes of Wooster, explained to me his technique of "boxing off" or "bleeding." By following his instructions, I was able successfully to top work some of the seedlings I had grown for the purpose. My next steps were to procure some of the nuts from Rev. Crath which he had brought from Poland and to make a personal importation of seed from an experiment station in Russia. With these two lots I started out to raise Persian walnut seedlings.
The first grafted trees set out at the Farm were obtained from Homer C. Jacobs of Kent, Ohio, in 1937. That year we began planting a three-acre tract. The trees were grown with scions cut from prize winning seedlings brought out as a result of the Ohio nut contest held in 1934. The trees were set 25 feet each way in order to conserve room. This distance allowed for but 69 trees to the acre and available space was quickly occupied. By 1944, it became necessary to add two more acres. The new land was from an abandoned berry ground. It was plowed, limed heavily and fertilized. The alternate rows were used for peach trees as fillers. The main rows were mostly filled with new varieties of Persian walnut from northern Ohio which had been grafted on black walnut stocks. Some of the room was used for growing black walnut seedlings for use in grafting with scions of prize winners in the next Ohio contest, plans for which were already under way.
In 1944, four plantings of Persian walnut trees located some distance from each other in northern Ohio, all had good crops and all produced superior nuts. A half bushel of the nuts were planted at the Farm during the following spring. All lots grew remarkably well. The resulting seedlings, together with grafted trees, which by then were growing in the Farm nursery, made it necessary to further add to the orchard room. The increase this time was eight acres, of which five were planted to trees during the spring of 1946. In all plantings, the distance between trees has remained the same as at first, not that 25 feet is enough for bearing trees but because it is expected to do a large amount of thinning out as bearing begins and many trees prove their inferiority.
The problem of propagating desirable varieties has been our greatest difficulty. The kinds we wanted were not to be had from nursery sources as they were entirely new. Commercial nurserymen would not even undertake the task of grafting. We were forced to rely upon our own ingenuity. Not only did we have to master the art of grafting but we had to drive hundreds of miles in order to obtain scions of the various kinds. We still know too little about grafting. We often raise the question as to how it happens that surgeons can do almost anything they wish in the way of cutting and splicing parts of the human body, yet with nut trees, 75 per cent of success is rarely attained.
Last spring I began a rather elaborate comparison of paraffin with beeswax—lanolin for use in grafting. Dr. Shelton had demonstrated that the latter was a good dressing for wounds and I assumed that in grafting, it would promote callousing. My experiment was partially frustrated by the loss of my melting pot which burned at about the time the work was half done. The grafting had to be finished without wax of any kind. Out of 60 grafts so set, only five grew. The five survivors had been merely "boxed off" or "bled," none grew which had been treated with hot wax of any kind.
Research with nuts has but barely begun at the Farm. We feel, however, much encouraged and that the worst is over. We have a total of 725 trees in the planting, many of which have already borne a few nuts. Production should increase rapidly and we will soon have considerable quantities of nuts and other material with which to work. We have the following genera, species, varieties, and hybrid forms: Butternut—Craxezy and Vincamp; Chestnut—Carr, Hobson, Yankee (Syn., Connecticut Yankee), and Zimmerman; Hickory, including hybrids—Bixby, Bogne, Boor Nos. 1 and 2, Bowen, Cranz Nos. 1 and 2, Fairbanks, Frank, Haskell, Leach, Lozsdon, McConkey, Nething, Reynolds, Ridiker, Russell, Stratford, Weschcke, and Wright; Pecan—Busseron, Greenriver, and Posey; Black Walnut—Barnhart, Brown, Cowle, Fulton (Syn. Miller of Ohio), Hare, Havice, Horton, Jansen, Krause, Lisbon, Mintle, Mohican, Murphey, Ohio, Rohwer, Snyder, Sparrow, Stabler, Stambaugh, Thomas, Tritten, Twin Lakes, and Wanda; Persian Walnut—Alliance, Baxter, Blosser, Broadview, Diller, Elmore, Gligor Nos. 1 and 2, Graber, Hall, Lieber, Lopeman, Oehn, and Schafer; Heartnut—Bellevue, Canoka, Fish, and Keck. In addition there are 55 black walnut seedlings of Brown and Lisbon varieties; 65 seedling black walnuts of unknown parentage; 280 Persian walnut seedlings of known percentage; 37 heartnut seedlings; 30 Chinese chestnut seedlings; and 22 seedling filberts.
The Ohio Black Walnut Contest of 1946