Crath Carpathian English Walnuts 
% The English or, more correctly, the Persian wal- 
nut has been highly prized since ancient times. It 
flourishes in southern Europe and on our own Pacific 
Coast but practically all the many attempts to grow 
it in our northern and eastern states have failed. 
The varieties or strains tried here were native to 
parts of the Old World where the winters are com- 
paratively mild and they were not able to survive our 
colder and more changeable climate. ; 
% Quite recently a much hardier strain has been in- 
troduced into America by Rev. Paul C. Crath of 
Toronto, Canada. For about eight years he was en- 
gaged in missionary work in the Carpathian Moun- 
tain highlands of the Ukraine district of northern 
Europe where he often had occasion to notice the 
hardiness of the English walnuts growing in that 
severe climate. Investigation indicated that this hardy 
strain represented the survival of the hardiest of stock 
brought there probably centuries ago from southern 
Europe or southern Asia. He often saw the peasants 
selling many hundred pounds of fine nuts from trees 
growing near their homes. From one tree belonging 
to Dr. A. Tarnawski of Kosow over thirteen hundred 
pounds of nuts were gathered in a single year. The 
trees were long lived. Near the town of Kostopol in 
Wolhynia there were several estimated to be over 
three hundred years old. These trees were all seed- 
lings, walnut grafting being unknown to the people 
of that country, and the nuts from the different trees 
differed widely in size and quality. From some of the 
better trees he sent nuts back to America for test 
planting. Young trees from these nuts are now grow- 
ing and proving hardy in many parts of Canada and 
in Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin. 
Some of these are already beginning to bear nuts. 
Our own Crath trees near Ithaca, N. Y., over one 
hundred in number, from seed planted in the spring 
of 1933, suffered little or no injury during the record 
cold winter of 1933-34 when practically all the other 
English walnut trees in New York were killed to- 
gether with large numbers of peach, plum, cherry 
and apple trees. 
% One of the most experienced and best qualified 
judges of hardy nut trees, the late Prof. James A. 
Neilson, ex-president of the Northern Nut Growers’ 
Association, at one time horticulturist in the Canadian 
Horticultural Experiment Station in Vineland, Ont., 
and later Nut Culture Specialist of Michigan State 
Agricultural College at East Lansing, Mich., had kept 
close watch of the behavior of these young Carpathian 
seedlings from the beginning of their introduction. 
He was so impressed with their hardiness and the 
excellence of the nuts that were sent over that he 
urged a thorough search of the Carpathian highlands 
to locate the best trees and secure seed nuts from 
them for planting in America. On Oct. 31, 1933, 
Prof. Neilson wrote Mr. Crath; “I consider the hardy 
Carpathian trees of great value and it is my im- 
pression that you have done something of great 
economic value to those in the north who desire to 
grow the English walnut. This strain is hardier than 
any other strain that I have ever seen and I really 
think you deserve great credit for your foresight and 
enterprise.” 
%& Rev. Mr. Crath had also long been a close ob- 
server of nut trees. He is a graduate of two Uni- 
versities in Europe and one in America and has 
a long agricultural background, his father having 
been head of the government agricultural college in 
the Ukraine. From his repeated observations of these 
hardy walnuts in the Carpathians and the behavior 
of the young trees in America, he felt so thoroughly 
convinced that here would be a valuable contribution 
to our horticulture that in the year 1934, with two 
trained assistants, he spent all his time for many 
weeks in making a systematic search for the best 
trees of the region. They located about seventy trees 
that were considered worthy of propagation. No tree 
was considered that showed even slight injury from 
the severe winter of 1928-29, when a good share of 
the fruit trees there were killed, and even the cows 
and pigs had to be taken into the peasants’ huts to 
keep them from freezing to death, the temperature 
remaining from 40-45° F. below zero for weeks at a 
time. From these very hardy trees, selection was 
based on production of good crops of thin shelled, 
easily cracked nuts with large kernels of good quality. 
Seed was saved only from trees growing at some dis- 
tance from other walnut trees to avoid cross-pollina- 
tion. He had found that seedlings from such self- 
pollinated trees usually bore nuts that closely resembled 
those of the parent tree. Each tree from which nuts 
were saved was given a number. The nuts from 
it were planted separately and the seedlings grown 
from these nuts were given the number of the parent 
tree. A large share of the seed from these best trees 
was planted in a nursery which he established near 
Toronto. 
% Experience with these Carpathian walnut seed- 
lings has shown them to grow rather slowly above the 
ground for the first two or three years during which 
time they are establishing a large, strong tap root. 
After that they grow rapidly. With us, they outgrow 
