Turkey, and then right across Europe 
from Constantinople to Edinburgh by 
way of Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Italy, 
Switzerland, France, Germany, Eng- 
land. In the eastern United States 
they are scattered from Massachusetts 
to Illinois, from New York to North 
Carolina, while we have a thoroughly 
established industry with many or- 
chards on the Pacific coast. 
The finest trees I ever saw were in 
a valley of the Taurus Mountains in 
southern Turkey, while the ruins of 
the Roman city of Baalbek in Syria are 
bowered in splendid Persian Walnut 
trees. 
To the eastern United States this 
tree is a foreigner. It is a native of a 
climate with a mild winter and a dry 
summer, somewhat like that of Cali- 
fornia. This may explain the puzzling 
experience that many people have had 
with it in the eastern parts of the 
United States. 
There are thousands of trees, nearly 
all seedlings, therefore each one a law 
to itself, scattered over the country 
east of the Mississippi River, north of 
the Cotton Belt and south of upper 
New England and upper Michigan. En- 
couraged by one of these examples 
someone buys a tree from a nursery 
(as I did), probably a seedling of un- 
known origin, and it usually dies. Yet 
there is that old tree in So-and-so’s 
yard nearby that lives and bears crops 
of good nuts. Why did the nursery 
tree die? Then the tree planter hears 
that English Walnuts are growing on 
the shores of Lake Ontario. Hope rises 
again. He gets a tree from that area, 
and it may die in Maryland of what 
is called winterkill, when it had not 
done so on the shore of Lake Ontario. 
Why these puzzling troubles? The 
answer is now reasonably well known. 
He has violated one of the three Eng- 
lish Walnut ‘“Musts” which are not 
difficult to follow if we just know. The 
three English Walnut “Musts” for the 
eastern United States are: 
First “Must”: Get the right variety. 
To get the right kind of an English 
Walnut tree you must get a grafted 
tree. 
There has been much search among 
the thousands of trees growing in the 
United States. Some reliable parent 
trees with high quality nuts have been 
found. One of them, the Wiltz-May- 
ette, has proved hardy in many an 
Eastern experimental planting. I have 
seen small trees of this variety from 
my own nursery hanging with as full 
a crop of nuts as a Black Walnut tree 
near by was bearing. 
The Franquette has an equally good 
record both on the Pacific Coast and 
in eastern planting. 
For hardiness all the English wal- 
nuts known in eastern United States 
have been eclipsed by recent importa- 
tions from the cold part of Europe. The 
Broadview English Walnut (parent tree 
near Odessa, Russia), survived 28° F. 
below Zero in British Columbia and 
has done far better in the eastern 
states than any other English walnut 
thus far tested. 
A man named Crath brought many 
seed from the Carpathian region of 
Roumania and Poland. They are being 
widely tried and new varieties may be 
looked for any time. 
Second “Must”: The soil must be 
right, that is, fertile, well drained and 
carrying aS much lime as is necessary 
for sweet clover or alfalfa, namely pH 
rd 
An English Walnut tree on a lawn in Washington, D. C. 
14 
