BLACK WALNUT! ITS GROWTH AND MANAGEMENT. 5 



tree more than associated species, partly because of a vague notion 

 that it had exceptional value and partly, no doubt, on account of the 

 yield of nuts. 



As scattered trees in the hardwood forest, black walnut is found 

 throughout the eastern part of the country, and here it is not re- 

 stricted to the bottom lands. It usually forms a very small propor- 

 tion of the total stand, especially in the Southeastern States, where 

 the forest is composed of a great variety of species. In the Ohio 

 River basin it is found in most of the open wood lots, where constant 

 culling is reducing the stand and grazing is preventing all reproduc- 

 tion. In the repeated cuttings that have gone on in these groves for 

 the last 30 years, walnut trees too small to be merchantable were often 

 left to grow, in the hope that the earlier demand for walnut would 

 be renewed. West of the Mississippi walnut becomes a more promi- 

 nent component of the river-bottom forests, and in parts of eastern 

 Kansas and Nebraska it is distinctly the dominant, sometimes prac- 

 tically the only, member of the stand. 



Pure stands of walnut are somewhat common in much of the Ohio 

 River basin, where they are typically found adjoining stands of 

 mixed hardwoods and extending as open groves into pasture lands. 

 These groves are valuable sources of supply, for the trees are fairly 

 uniform in size and are much less expensive to market than are scat- 

 tered trees. Pure stands of walnut are also frequent in certain 

 localities in the western part of its range, although the stands as a 

 rule contain an admixture of elm and hackberry at least, and fre- 

 quently a number of other species. Pure stands are rarely dense 

 enough to keep out grass, but the sod is usually not normally thick 

 in these places. 



The wide range of walnut involves its association with a vast num- 

 ber of other species, from basswood and hemlock in the northern 

 part of its range to holly and shortleaf pine in the southern part. In 

 the Ohio-Indiana region it is found most frequently with ash, oaks, 

 beech, maple, hickory, elm, cherry, and Kentucky coffeetree. South 

 of the Ohio River the most prominent difference is the association of 

 red cedar and walnut, which is especially characteristic in Kentucky 

 and middle Tennessee. In the Appalachian Mountain walnut is 

 widely scattered, but reaches its best development on bottom lands 

 and coves below 4,000 feet in elevation. Its associates are very nu- 

 merous in this region, red oak, white oak, yellow poplar, and chestnut 

 being the chief. In Illinois its more common associates in the river- 

 bottom hardwood types are oaks, white elm, and ash. Toward north- 

 ern Illinois and Wisconsin basswood and sugar maple become more 

 important, but do not extend far over into Iowa. West of the 

 Mississippi white elm, oaks, hackberry, and to a lesser extent hickory 



