Page 14 



BETTER FRUIT 



March 



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some new variety particularly adapted 

 to the existing conditions and rc(|uire- 

 ments sViould (ieveloj). At present, the 

 Franquette seems to be the most pop- 

 ular and probably is one of the best, 

 if not the best, varieties to plant. 

 While it appears that good crops may 

 generally be secured' fi'om the planting 

 of file Frantiuette entirely, I am sure 

 that they would be benefded by proper 

 cross-fertilization, and until the fer- 

 tilizing characteristics of our standard 

 walnuts are more delinitely known it 

 seems to me that some intermingling 

 of varieties which blossom at the same 

 time would be safer and at least tend 

 to better fertilization, and consequently 

 larger and better crops of nuts. In 

 California several new varieties of rea- 

 sonably well-established merits such 

 as the Concord, Wiltz-Mayette, Eurica 

 and others have of late been planted 

 quite extensively, and some of them 

 are also now being tried in the North- 

 west with promising results. 



Under favorable conditions the Eng- 

 lish walnut trees attain great size, and 

 therefore should not be planted less 

 than fifty feet apart; on good land sixty 

 feet is not too nnich for perfect devel- 

 opment of the trees when nearing ma- 

 ture age. In urging a good <listance 

 between walnut trees and to show how 

 necessary it is to have plenty of space, 

 the great growth of three old Euro- 

 pean trees and one in Clarke County, 

 Washington, mav be cited. The Beach- 

 emwell tree in England had a height of 

 90 feet; spread, 120 feet; diameter of 

 trunk, nearly 10 feet, and a yield of 

 1000 pounds of nuts a season. A tree 

 in France lived to be at least .SOO years 

 old; had a spread of 125 feel; trunk 14 

 feet, and yielded l.VIO jxnmds a season. 

 The giant walnut tree in Crimea 

 reached the age of 1000 years and for 

 a long time yielded about a Ion of nuts 



annually. The waliuil tree on the 

 Resell place, about three miles north 

 of Vancouver, Washington, now 32 

 years of age, has a trunk of eight feet 

 in circumference; height, 52 feet; 

 spread, 73 feel, and this season bore 

 350 pounds of nuts. 



With walnut trees planted the proper 

 distance apart, many consider clean 

 cultivation a waste of land while trees 

 ai'e young, and others must gel some- 

 thing from the land for living until the 

 trees come into bearing, and therefore 

 it often becomes desirable to interplant 

 walnuts with other quick-maturing 

 fruit trees as fillers, or to grow hoed 

 or cultivated crops in the wide spaces 

 between the rows. Such interplanting 

 I do not consider especially objection- 

 able, provided the fillers are reinoved 

 when the walnut trees require the 

 land, and the hoed or cultivated crops 

 aie not iilanted close enough to rob the 

 walnut trees of their necessary moist- 

 ure and plant food. 



For best results the utmost care 

 should be taken in the planting of wal- 

 nut trees, and the less exposure, mutila- 

 tion and injury to the roots in trans- 

 I)lanting the better it is for the tree. 

 When the land has been staked off, 

 large holes should be dug to give the 

 roots plenty of room and thereby 

 facilitate their rapid development. For 

 this purpose it is a very good plan to 

 blast the holes with d\ namite, espe- 

 cially when there is a layer of subsoil 

 too hard for the roots to penetrate, or 

 even check them in their downward 

 growth, which in most cases seems 

 essential to the best develoi)ment of the 

 walnut. This blasting should prefer- 

 ably be done in the autumn while the 

 soil is dry, and is undoubtedly inex- 

 liensive and effective, as one stick of 

 d.\ namite iilaced three or four feet deep 

 will crack U[) and loosen hard subsoils 



for several feet around. One way to 

 make holes for the dynamite is to drive 

 a crowbar into the ground; but prob- 

 ably a better way is to use a soil auger, 

 wliich readily bores through even the 

 harder subsoils. In planting the trees 

 the ends of the roots should be trimmed 

 with a knife b\ smooth, slanting cuts, 

 and the best soil should be carefully 

 and firmly packed around the roots 

 and also used as much as possible in 

 filling the holes. 



Young walnut trees require and re- 

 spond to good care by vigorous and 

 rapid growth, and unless the land is 

 very rich it will pay to stimulate them 

 with barnyard manure or other fer- 

 tilizers. Walnut trees are gross feed- 

 ers and will readily take up almost any 

 fertilizer, and can hardly be over- 

 fertilized. Most young rapid-growing 

 walnut trees require staking, and often 

 it is necessary to train and tie up some 

 branches to proper shape. They should 

 be headed about five or six feet from 

 the ground and for the first few years 

 require attention to give the head the 

 proper form, but after that need but 

 little in the way of actual pruning. 



.Seedling walnut trees are somewhat 

 slow in coming into bearing, but the 

 generally accepted idea that the wal- 

 nut is normally very late in bearing is 

 not entirely true, as grafted trees usu- 

 ally have a few scattered nuts three 

 and four years from planting, and 

 sometimes even sooner, and increasing 

 annually thereafter with the age and 

 size of the tree. It is reasonable to 

 estimate that a good fifteen-year-old 

 tree will produce on an average from 

 forty to fifty pounds of cured nuts a 

 year; and, in favorable localities, crops, 

 though some may be heavier than 

 others, may be expected and reason- 

 ably depended upon every year. \Miile 

 the returns per acre from a walnut 

 grove may not be so large or so soon 

 realized as with some other fruits, it 

 is on the increase almost indefinitely, 

 and a staple price for walnuts is easier 

 to maintain than with more perishable 

 crops. 



Walnut trees are comparatively free 

 from insect pests, and aside from the 

 walnut blight no serious disease has 

 yet attacked the walnut. No variety 

 can be said to be entirely free from 

 blight, but the disease varies greatly 

 with different varieties and dilVerent 

 seasons. As yet no specific remedy has 

 been discovered; the only solution to 

 the blight problem now seems to be to 

 keep the trees in good, healthy condi- 

 tion, and to grow the most blight- 

 resistant varieties, with which the 

 chances for loss will probably be no 

 more than with other varieties of fruit. 



In the Willamette and the Columbia 

 River Valleys walnuts usually mature 

 and begin to drop about the last week 

 in September, and most of the crop is 

 generally harvested the first two weeks 

 in October, so that by the middle of 

 that month the walnut harvest is com- 

 pleted. .\s the nuts mature the hulls 

 crack open and the nuts usually roll 

 out clean and drop to the ground or 

 ai"e dislodged In shaking the trees. 



