The growing of nuts in North Dakota has hardly been considered as a possibility even by the average amateur up to the present time. Nevertheless, evidence is gradually accumulating that some varieties of nuts can be grown as an addition to the home orchard in nearly all parts of the state.
We have no native nut plants except the hazel and our native hazel seldom produces nuts in any quantity in the wild state, hence the possibility of growing them for profit undoubtedly lies some distance in the future.
Nut bearing plants which have been introduced with success are the butternut and the black walnut. Trees of these two species are to be found in small numbers at various points in the state and have in practically every case been grown from nuts planted where the trees are now standing. In the past many failures have been reported with trees grown from nuts sent up from the South. Such trees as are now standing are the hardy remnants of considerable numbers of seedlings started, most of which have fallen by the wayside because of the rigors of our climate. Black walnut trees raised from seed produced on trees which have reached fruiting age in North Dakota seem to possess the necessary hardiness. As to whether the named varieties of walnuts would be a success in this territory remains a question. Their culture has not been attempted.
Butternuts are naturally a more northerly species than black walnuts but have not been so widely planted in North Dakota. Nevertheless there is a sprinkling of bearing butternut trees in some of the pioneer groves. Seed from these was planted at the experiment station in the fall of 1920. The seedlings prospered and some of them bore nuts in 1925, one tree producing 114 nuts that year. Since then there has been a crop each year and the trees have been making a growth of a foot or more per year. This would seem to indicate that the butternut has possibilities, at least as a producer of nuts for home consumption.
Both the black walnut and butternut are subject to damage by late spring frosts which kill off the opening blossoms. While it is not likely that North Dakota will be a commercial nut growing state, we can look forward with confidence to the time when a group of nut trees will be included in the grove which will surround each North Dakota home.
The President: Butternuts and walnuts grow in Manitoba. I know of 47 trees.
Member: Mr. Gall reports that heartnuts have endured the winter in northwestern Manitoba. The black walnut has grown quite well in Swift Current. That part of Canada is much colder.
The President: Our next paper is a report on the nut contest. Mr. Bixby had planned to be here, but was unable to come. Has Dr. Deming anything to offer?
Dr. Deming: I have no very definite report to make on the nut contest, because it wasn't finished until about two weeks ago and I haven't had time to work on the results. The important part of the report is the result of Mr. Bixby's scientific calculations on the properties of the nuts, and this will be published in the report. The contest this year cannot rank in extent and value with the contest of 1926. One reason for that is that the nut crop last fall seems to have been everywhere very deficient, and in fact many contestants sent in nuts from the year before. The second reason is that we didn't get good advertising. I don't know exactly why we didn't. At first I didn't think we were going to get any nuts at all. But belated notices in the Fruit Grower, and especially in the Farm Journal, finally waked up a lot of contestants. Possibly a third reason why the contest was not as successful as in 1926 was that there were so many kinds of nuts for which prizes were offered. I think that is rather confusing. I think we had better do as in 1926 and offer a prize for a single nut each year, rather than prizes for all the nuts each year. Take one nut one year and another nut the next year, and so on, and then begin over again. At the same time I think we ought to have a standing prize for nuts of each species, that is for any better than those we already have. We have such a prize for the hickory, the Bowditch. At different times other members have offered prizes for other species. I would be glad to offer another standing prize of $25 for some other nut in addition to Mr. Bowditch's for the hickory. Three hundred eighty-eight people sent in nuts. That was many fewer than in 1926. 138 people wrote letters but never sent any nuts. There were 243 different black walnut specimens this year and 1229 in 1926. We had some very valuable black walnuts. Some fully equal to, if not better than, those we already have. Very few came from the South. More came from the northern states. Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan were well represented. We got 94 different specimens of butternuts. Some of these were very good. Most of them were from the North, Vermont and Wisconsin leading. We got 134 specimens of shagbark hickory, 40 shellbarks and 10 others, perhaps hybrids or other species. There was one California black walnut and only 4 beechnuts, very small indeed. Not worthy of propagation at all. There were a few odd nuts. Only 40 chestnuts were sent. I think that was because we did not get our publicity out soon enough. The chestnut crop matures earlier and in many instances the crops were out of the way. Of these chestnuts, 20 were Japanese. When you first tasted them they tasted like potato but later developed a large amount of sweetness. There were 20 American chestnuts. Dr. Zimmerman would call them small because his standards for the American chestnut are larger than my New England ideas. When the chestnuts first came in they were quite green. In a few days they hardened. If I dried them a little and then put them in boxes they began to mold and soon would be a mass of mold. It always seemed to begin at the butt end and would gradually spread over the whole nut and then get inside and spoil it. I washed some in boric acid, others in formaldehyde, and that hardened them. Then I tried packing them in pulverized sugar and in salt. That extracted all the water so that in a few hours you could pour out half a glass of water. I packed them in peat moss and sand and treated them in various ways, and finally packed them in fresh hardwood sawdust. In this they kept in good condition.