Yet the future looks just as bright to me as it did the day I started to make the English walnut survey, just as bright because we will overcome these obstacles.
I might close by saying that while we are ready at the college and at the experiment station to go ahead we are not ready to plunge into any extensive experiments. It requires money and the money does not come in such quantities that we can plunge into anything in fact. But we are ready to begin to build a foundation on which we expect later on to experiment, and I hope that in ten more years, or in nine more years, if this association comes back to Pennsylvania, we can invite them to the experiment station to see what foundations we have laid and what progress we have made in the experimental work of nut culture.
The President: Will there be any discussion on the subject so ably covered by Prof. Fagan? Are there any questions that you desire to ask the Professor?
The Secretary: I would like to ask Prof. Fagan if he has a good word to say for the English walnut in Pennsylvania and in other parts of the country as a profitable tree to plant, from the result of his inspection of the trees of the state.
Prof. Fagan: We get a letter probably on an average of once a week, from some one in the State of Pennsylvania who wants to plant anywhere from five acres to a hundred acres in English walnuts. We tell him to go slow, to feel his ground out pretty well and to remember that he is planting a tree that is a greater feeder, probably, than any other fruit tree; that it must have food or it won't grow; and instead of planting a hundred acres to plant maybe half an acre and select the best varieties that information at the present time indicates, those that lived through the winter of 1917-1918.
We have seedling trees in Pennsylvania, that probably date back to near revolutionary war times; in fact there are some around Germantown that no doubt were growing at the time of the revolutionary war, around the old Germantown Academy. Personally I would not hesitate to plant as good an acre of land as there is in Lancaster County, or ten or twenty or fifty acres, to the better types of English walnuts that we have today. It probably would not be profitable in my time; I do not know; but it certainly would be profitable in the lifetime of my children. I would not, however, want to plant the nuts on cheap and poor mountain land where the most of our larger plantings, even of chestnut, have been made throughout the country, on land that was not worth the attention of other crops. When people write to us that they have certain types of land we always tell them if they can grow an average crop of corn, wheat, clover or potatoes on that land there probably isn't any question but that if they plant English walnuts they will be successful in raising some English walnuts. Whether they will raise them profitably or not is another question. But nothing can take the place of one or two good trees on every farm, especially in southeastern Pennsylvania. There isn't much question but that those trees can be grown successfully from a line through Allentown to the Susquehanna River, and on over to the general range of the Allegheny Mountains, down to the Mainland and West Virginia line. Even in our higher elevations of sixteen or eighteen hundred feet I can show you some good old bearing trees that are ten or twelve inches in diameter. No dwelling houses there. They are out in the country and they are high up.
The Secretary: As has been stated the essential thing in the successful growing of Persian walnuts, and probably other nuts, is high fertilization. I believe that many of our failures to grow the Persian walnut are due to lack of sufficient food.
The Treasurer: I do not suppose that any one in the association has made more of an effort to get better records than I have—at least I have made a good deal of effort. I have learned that in 1916, if I remember correctly, the Stabler bore sixteen bushels of hulled nuts and it was estimated that two were washed away by the rains. In another year, I was informed the Weiker tree bore twelve bushels. In following up other trees I found it impossible to get any results. I tried to get information as to the parent Hales hickory and the most I could learn was that the family had gathered as high as two or three bushels in one year. But when I saw that the tree stood on the side of a well traveled road with only a low stone wall to get over, and that the squirrels were plentiful and the children undoubtedly likewise, I thought it a wonder that the Hales got any of the nuts.
In the case of most of our fine parent nut trees they are either situated in out-of-the-way places where it is a task to get to them, or else they are situated on the side of a traveled road where the passersby are pretty likely to get a great many of the nuts.
Take the case of the Fairbanks hickory in Alamosa, Iowa. It stands on the side of the road on top of a hill outside of the limit of the houses of the town. I do not see how it can help being that a great proportion of the nuts are picked up by passersby. When we have grafted trees planted where they can be protected and the crop can be watched we can get reliable data for our records; but I am afraid that except in a few instances, we cannot get such data for the parent trees.