238 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



Mat, 1911 



k •-. 



Siebold's walnut is a really ornamental tree, but 

 allied species are better for nuts. Seven years old. 

 25 ft. nigh 



and its near cousin, the Arizona walnut, 

 but none of our walnuts has as yet been 

 developed for high-class market purposes. 

 The common black walnut promises much 

 through selection and breeding for thin 

 shelled nuts of more delicate quality than 

 those furnished by wild trees. One of the 

 Japanese walnuts of excellent quality, the 

 heartnut (Juglans cordiformis) , will in all 

 probability be grown largely in orchard form 

 in this country, but unfortunately an infe- 

 rior Japanese walnut, the Siebold, has 

 become established first, because of the 

 remarkable beauty and rapid growth of the 

 tree, which is almost tropical in its luxuri- 

 ance of foliage and beautiful blossoms, and 

 under favorable circumstances grows four 

 or even five feet in height per year. The 

 heartnut is nearly as beautiful and rapid 

 a grower, but has only recently been 

 brought forward as a desirable orchard nut 

 tree. 



Among the hickories, the pecan is cul- 

 tivated over the largest area in America, 

 and while the tree is hardy as far north 

 as Massachusetts, the great bulk of tender, 

 highly flavored, delicate pecan nuts 

 must come from the Gulf states. The 

 shagbark hickory promises to take the place 

 of the pecan in the northern and eastern 

 parts of the country as soon as grafting 

 methods and selection of desirable types 

 are applied as well as they have been with 

 the pecan. Closely allied to the shag- 

 bark hickory is the Carolina hickory. 

 The shellbark hickory belongs to the 

 Mississippi Valley and is at its best in the 

 Middle West. It is a very much larger 

 and coarser nut than the shagbark or 

 Carolina hickories, but nevertheless is 

 a delicious nut, and selection of thin- 

 shelled types, or of hybrids with the shag- 

 bark, will furnish a large source of revenue 



eventually without doubt. Three or four 

 other species of hickory furnish edible nuts, 

 but apparently we are to look to our dozen 

 species of hickories as timber producers 

 chiefly, with the exception of the species 

 quoted. 



We have four distinct species of chestnut 

 indigenous to North America, the sweet 

 chestnut, the chinquapin, and two species 

 of Castanopsis. All of these have close 

 relatives in other parts of the temperate 

 world, which thrive with us when intro- 

 duced, but these chestnuts for the most 

 part, with the exception of some from 

 northern China and Japan, are much larger 

 and coarser than ours. These large coarse 

 chestnuts, however, are very valuable for 

 food purposes, and bearing early, sometimes 

 at two or three years of age, furnish a quick 

 source of income and food supply. Further- 

 more, the Asiatic chestnuts seem to be more 

 or less immune to the blight, Diaporthe 

 parasitica, which is now devastating our 

 American chestnut forests and spreading 

 with great rapidity. It is not improbable 

 that this blight originally came from the 

 Orient, where the chestnuts, through 

 survival of the fittest for ages, have 

 adapted themselves to conditions, and 

 resist the blight. 



We have a parallel demonstrated in the 

 hazels. Our native hazels, two in number 

 of species, resist a blight which attacks 

 only weaker individuals, but which has 

 a tendency to destroy at once all of the 

 very fine filbert and cob nut plants brought 

 to this country from abroad. By selection 

 and breeding we shall undoubtedly develop 

 native hazels of high quality and large 

 size, and the author already has certain 

 varieties under way which promise to be 

 more valuable even than the European and 

 Asiastic sorts of hazels which bring such 

 good incomes to foreign orchardists. 



Our beechnut, by selection of types, 

 will in the end give individual trees of 

 value for propagating purposes. 



Some of the white oaks will furnish a 

 large food supply of edible nuts in the 

 future, but the oaks are not cultivated 

 for acorns to any extent as yet, except 

 in China and some parts of South America, 

 we believe. 



In the tropical parts of North America 

 we can raise practically all of the tropical 

 nuts of the world, and there are few tillable 

 acres of the continent, from the rocky 

 pastures of New England to the hot sands 

 of the Florida peninsula, which will not 

 yield at least one hundred dollars' worth 

 of nuts per acre per year. Not only the 

 acres of land above water will grow nuts, 

 but acres of land beneath the surface of the 

 water will raise such nuts as those of Lotus, 

 and Calthrops, which are used largely 

 for food in other parts of the world. Very 

 few plants will give a larger return per 

 acre, and with less trouble, than orchards 

 of nut-bearing shrubs and trees, and the 

 time is coming when the New England 

 farmer, exhausted by his efforts at paying 

 taxes on poor lands, can sit on the porch 

 during the day with the leisure of the 



Brazilian coffee planter, and see nature 

 attend to his crop for the most part. He 

 will not do this, however, until he is driven 

 by desperation to wake up. This does 

 not mean that nut orchards do not require 

 attention. They will do better under 

 neglect than most other orchards, but on 

 the other hand they respond very promptly 

 to the touch of the scientific or loving 

 hand, and there is hardly any limitation 

 to the amount of care which can be given 

 with profit to nut orchards. 



At Cornell University there is a per- 

 manent exhibition of the edible nuts of 

 the world, and the first course in nut culture 

 to be established in America is at that 

 institution. Prizes are offered every year 

 for indigenous nuts of remarkable character, 

 in order that trees may be located, to be 

 used for propagating purposes subse- 

 quently. Professor John Craig, who is 

 in charge of the work, finds much enthu- 

 siasm among his students in this special 

 field. 



Aside from the usefulness and profit in 

 nut culture, we have few more beautiful 

 trees than the ones belonging to this 

 group. The majestic pecan, growing some- 

 times to a height of one hundred and 

 seventy feet, is one of the noblest of all 

 trees. The wide- spreading chestnut, the 

 sturdy shagbark hickory, the lofty black 

 walnut, the beautiful royal walnut, are 

 all a source of joy to lovers of the beautiful, 

 and the time is perhaps coming when trees 

 of these sorts will largely replace the use- 

 less though ornamental trees which now 

 line our roadsides and fill our parks. It 

 is quite as easy to set out a tree which will 

 bear an average of five bushels of nuts per 

 year, worth five dollars per bushel, as it 

 is to set out a poplar or willow. There is 

 one chief reason why it has not been done 

 generally: People did not think about it. 



The Japanese chestnu ■ bears at a very early 

 age. This three-year-old tree for example carries 

 about one hundred burrs 



