ROBBING'S FRUIT GROWERS' GUIDE 



37 



One of the striking peculiarities of the French type 

 of walnuts is their late blooming. This peculiar feature 

 of these walnuts was no doubt developed in Grenoble, 

 France, where the Chaberte, Franquette, Mayette and 

 Parisienne originated. When the French walnuts are 

 planted among such varieties as Santa Barbara, Pla- 

 centia Perfection and others, the difference is very 

 striking, for they rarely have a bud swelled by the mid- 

 dle of April, while the varieties which have been de- 

 veloped in California will be clothed with all their 

 foliage. 



Deep alluvial soils should always be selected for 

 planting walnuts, and a liberal supply of water should 

 be available, either by surface irrigation, or the soil in 

 which the trees are planted should be of a moist nature. 



It is only recently that the San Joaquin and Sacra- 

 mento valleys have been found to possess climatic and 

 soil conditions, making the culture of the walnut a very 

 profitable undertaking, particularly of the French varie- 

 ties grafted on California Black Walnut root. 



GATHERING AND CURING 



Walnuts are gathered during the months of Septem- 

 ber and October, depending on the locality. The time 

 of maturity is indicated by the cracking of the hulls. 

 The nuts drop to the ground and are gathered up at in- 

 tervals. Any nuts sticking to the hulls may be easily 

 dislodged by jarring the tree or knocking them off with 

 light poles. The nuts are taken from the field to the 

 drying ground and spread out on trays. Prune trays 

 may be used to good advantage for this purpose. They 

 should be stirred occasionally to cause them to dry 

 uniformly. After the nuts are dried, for commercial 

 purposes it is necessary to grade them into several sizes. 

 This is done by passing them over a revolving screen 

 having meshes three-quarters of an inch square at the 



A top- worked Walnut. Note the long sticks tied to the grafts 

 to keep them from breaking off. A much better and well 

 balanced tree would be secured, and a much stronger 

 union at the point of contact had these grafted branches 

 been cut back severely the first year of their growth, and 

 then following this up by shortening in and thinning out 

 the laterals for a couple of yeai thereafter, until the head 

 of the tree was formed. The fallacious idea that pruning 

 the walnut is a detriment is responsible for just such non- 

 sensical methods as shown in this illustration. 



This tree has been pruned for several years to secure a 

 symmetrical head. This having now been established, 

 pruning in the future will be confined to cutting out 

 interfering branches and checking the growth of those 

 which might cause the tree to be drawn out of shape. 



Franquette Walnut, one of the most popular 

 of the French introductions 



upper end and one inch square at the lower end. The 

 small meshes take out the dirt, and the inch meshes take 

 out the small nuts, which are called No. 2 nuts, while 

 those going over the screen are known as No. 1 nuts. 

 The drying, as a rule, is done in the sun, although some 

 growers resort to evaporators, intimating that by this 

 method the pellicle, which is the covering over the 

 kernel, does not become discolored to the extent that 

 it does when the nuts are dried in the sun. As far as 

 my observation goes, unless the weather is inclement, 

 walnuts under California climatic conditions may be 

 dried without any detriment to the nut or its quality in 

 the open. As soon as the kernel is firm and cracks 

 readily, the nuts are dry. After the nuts are graded 



