96 



arboretum is really the experimental department of the nut industry, 

 or at least a portion of it. 



A nut arboretum may be defined as a collection of the best va- 

 rieties of each kind of nut bearing trees and shrubs, including not 

 only those which rank high and are considered worthy of propagation 

 because of a combination of good qualities, and which would be con- 

 sidered as probably fit for commercial planting, but also those with 

 one quaility outstanding even though .other qualities are decidedly 

 inferior. 



A few years ago a nut arboretum with two specimens of each va- 

 riety, and a larger number of the more promising ones, would have 

 contained a modest number of trees and not have taken over about 

 five acres, allowing a considerable amount of space for each tree. 

 But now the search for fine varieties has developed nearly 100 va- 

 rieties each of black walnuts, hickories and hazels, about 10 of butter- 

 nuts and an equal number of Japan walnuts, and about 25 each of 

 Persian walnuts, northern pecans and miscellaneous walnuts. There 

 are a goodly number of chestnuts available for planting outside the 

 blight area, and some 8 or 9 species of beech of which no variety of 

 sufficient size to make it commercially valuable has yet been dis- 

 covered, so, probably, room should be provided for 500 varieties to 

 be set at once. It would be safe to say that about 30 to tO acres 

 should be set aside to properly house a nut arboretum, allowing space 

 for additional meritorious varieties which probably will be discovered 

 or produced in due course. 



Assuming that the land has been provided and the young trees 

 set out, they would have to be fertilized and cultivated in order to 

 have them develop and get into bearing in reasonable time. The 

 length of time taken to get the various trees into bearing will vary 

 with the individual variety, some bearing very early amd others 

 tardier, but while I have known young trees of the earlier bearing 

 varieties of nearly every species to bear a nut or two within two or 

 three years after setting out, and wliile some will bear quite a num- 

 ber of nuts in the course of 5 or 6 years, it will probably be about 

 10 or 12 yeaTS before enough of the trees, between which hj'brids are 

 desired, will bear sufficiently so it is possible to do much work. 



