Nut Trees The Linn County Nurseries 
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the tree and filled with peat to facilitate watering and hold the moisture. If 
peat is not available fill in with mellow top soil and put a mulch of strawy 
manure about the tree. 
The common pests of nut trees are the Walnut Caterpillar and Fall Web- 
worm. Either may entirely defoliate walnut or other trees in late summer. 
Spraying in mid-summer with arsenate of lead is an effective control. 
BLACK WALNUTS are very heavy feeders and do best in deep alluvial 
soil. They are generally quite unsatisfactory on poor upland soil. Well estab- 
lished trees may be given heavy applications of barnyard manure or other 
fertilizer judiciously applied and will yield larger better filled nuts because of it. 
Being native, Black Walnuts are hardy and well adapted to Mid-Western 
planting. Growth starts late in the spring and stops early in the fall so un- 
seasonable cold spells almost never injure them. The English or Persian Walnut 
differs in this respect and will grow too late in the fall if growing conditions 
are favorable and can then be severely frozen. None has been found which 
has really proven dependable here, and if they were, do not have the fine 
flavor of the Black Walnut and would be superior only in easier cracking. 
No other nut except the Hickory retains its flavor as well as the Black Walnut 
after heating, and their use is increasing in baking goods and confectionery. 
Consumers who have had nuts of the improved varieties appreciate their 
superiority and insist on having “Those walnuts which crack out in halves 
and quarters’, and willingly pay double the price of common walnuts for them. 
The grafted kinds are also superior for landscape planting being more 
thrifty and having larger, darker, glossy green foliage. 
Our Black Walnuts are grown from bench grafts on one year old roots 
which means the graft union is well under ground and if the top of one is 
accidentally broken or cut off, it will sprout up from above the union thus saving 
the variety. Where the union is above ground as it is in trees propagated 
by the usual method of grafting or budding, the variety would be lost in such 
a mishap, and only a seedling root remain. Bench grafted trees also are 
smoother having no scar where the scion or bud was inserted. 
Thomas is the best Known and succeeds over a wide territory. Within the 
whole range of the Black Walnut only a few distant sections report another 
kind preferable to Thomas, and commercial plantings are mostly of it. The 
tree is hardy, very vigorous, productive, and a very young bearer, switches one 
year old often bearing the following season. The nuts are large, easily hulled 
and fairly thin-shelled. The kernels have fine flavor and color, easily crack 
out in halves and quarters, and the yield is ten pounds or more per bushel. 
Sizes, 6-8 ft., 5-6 ft., 4-5 ft., 3-4 ft., 2-3 ft. 
Ohio has a large oblong hull which is very difficult to remove otherwise 
it is one of the best kinds. The nut is long and pointed, with a thin shell, is 
easy to crack and has splendid quality. Sizes, 6-8 ft., 5-6 ft., 3-4 ft. 
Stabler is a slower growing variety of fair quality and is known chiefly 
because a considerable part of the long pointed nuts have but a single lobe, 
cracking out in one piece. Sizes, 4-5 ft., 3-4 ft. 
Stambaugh won first prize in the 1926 contest of the Northern Nut Growers’ 
Association with more than 1,200 competitors. Reports of its performance so 
far have been remarkably uniformly good. Possibly it may prove to be a better 
tree and become a strong rival of Thomas for first place. Sizes, 6-8 ft., 5-6 ft., 
4-5 ft. 
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