Smith: The Persian Walnut 59 
with them that he planted one hundred 
more, seedlings from a nursery, fool- 
ishly thinking them all much alike. 
The new trees grew finely, showing the 
Persian type of foliage. When they 
bore, it was such a collection of long 
rough nuts of evident butternut (Juglans 
cinerea) paternity that the farmer dug 
up all of the trees but one, which bears 
a nut of apparent hybrid form and little 
value. 
Experiments of Dr. Robert T. Morris 
and others have shown that there is 
great freedom of hybridization between 
the various species of walnut. Some 
hybridization is possible hetween the 
walnuts and hickories. So common is 
the cross between the Persian and the 
Black in California that it is a recog- 
nized kind called Royal, distinguished 
as are many hybrids for astounding 
vigor of growth. This is offset by a 
poor yielding power but Professor Smith, 
of the University of California, reports 
one (see bulletin on walnut blight, 1912) 
that is a good bearer. That one tree 
is exceedingly significant. It would 
seem to indicate that others like it can 
be produced—truitful and growing with 
the fury of a weed. This is merely one 
of the many breeding problems which 
the walnut alone holds out to us now 
that we know how to breed plants. 
A MARYLAND SPECIMEN 
A peculiarly promising tree as a breed- 
ing parent, is one that has been found in 
Maryland about eighteen miles north 
of Washington, D.C. If the nut hada 
little less bitter on its skin, the tree 
would be an almost ideal parent. It is 
reported to have borne twelve or thir- 
teen consecutive crops. This is unusual 
for any fruiting tree. Rumors to the 
contrary, consecutive cropping of fruit 
and nut trees is not common except in 
the form of a heavy and a light crop 
alternating. Unfortunately I cannot 
give exact measurements for the ‘yield 
of this Maryland tree. Its regular rec- 
ord is probably due in large part to its 
late habit of spring growth. Whereas 
most of the Persian walnuts send out 
their leaves with the earliest approaches 
of spring and lose their blossoms and 
often their foliage and twigs with frost, 
as does the apricot, this tree remains 
dormant until June, then grows with 
great rapidity and matures its crop. In 
Grenoble, France, I saw on the 10th of 
June, 1913, when farmers were making 
hay, some Persian walnut trees just 
showing the first green of their buds at 
the same time that cherries were ripe on 
an adjacent tree. I should have passed 
these trees by except that I asked my 
companion, Vice Consul Murton, a 
master of the local walnut situation, 
why the leafless trees had died. Al- 
though permitted to live, these trees 
were not particularly prized by the 
French walnut growers, because they 
were reported to bear scanty crops, al- 
though the nuts were reported of satis- 
factory quality. The bringing together 
of these two late strains, one of good 
bearing habit and fair quality, the other 
of excellent quality and both of wonder- 
ful frost resisting ability would seem to 
have great promise as a breeding exper- 
iment. 
I called these facts to the attention of 
E. R. Lake, of the Pomological staff of 
the United States Department of Agri- 
culture, and asked him who 1n the United 
States was in a position to conduct these 
experiments. After a moment’s pause 
he said, “I guess you will have to go to 
J. W. Killen, of Felton, Delaware.” 
I happen to know that Mr. Killen is a 
farmer of an experimental turn of mind, 
willing to work and sacrifice time and 
money for the advance of agricultural 
knowledge. I regard it as little short 
of lamentable that so great a problem as 
the breeding of a new tree crop of the 
importance and promise of the Persian 
walnut should, in the United States of 
America, be dependent wholly upon the 
unpaid and unsupported enthusiasm of 
a private individual. We need at once 
a thorough search for the best among the 
hundreds of possible parent trees in the 
East. Mr. Fagan, of Penn State College, 
made such a survey of his state in the 
summer of 1915 and found about 5,000 
Persian walnut trees which are now 
under observation. They need testing 
out with regard to their behavior under 
cultivation, their resistance to the Cali- 
