Corsan transplanting 
a three-year-old Cir- 
cassian walnut tree 
grown on his Isling- 
ton, Ont., farm from 
Russian seed. 
Giant Circassian 
and hickory nuts 
grown on Cor- 
san’s farm. 
The tree 
Japanese heartnuts, much like our butternuts. 
grows very fast. 
A burr full of Chinese sweet chestnuts. 
By Russell Gore 
OPE for some of Michigan’s “Ten 
million idle acres” of former pine- 
lands is held out by the experimental 
planting in the southern part of this state 
of exotic nut trees usually associated with 
warmer climes. 
Special attention is being paid to the 
paper-shelled English walnut that forms 
so large a part of California’s nut crop. 
Pecans, pawpaws, Japanese heartnuts and 
even persimmons are among the many va- 
rieties being planted both on farms and 
estates and at the University of Michigan 
arboretum. 
Preliminary experimental work, cover- 
ing a period of 20 years, has been done by 
George Hebden Corsan, former Michigan 
resident, in his nut plantation at Islington, 
near Toronto, Ont. Here, in a climate 
similar to that of Michigan below Sagi- 
naw on the east and Muskegon on the 
west, he has produced more than 300 va- 
rieties of nuts. 
Prominent among Corsan’s exotics is 
the paper-shelled English walnut, the Cir- 
cassian. This tree heretofore has taken 
many years to mature. But Corsan has 
evolved a variety that grows from seed to 
bearing stage in from six to seven years, 
and matures even more rapidly when 
grafted on the native black walnut of 
Michigan woods. It is the only one of 
the 110 named varieties that can be 
adapted to northern climes. 
Another exotic is known as the “Hican,” 
a southern pecan grafted on the native 
hickory. Its nuts are sweeter because 
ripened by frost. An Asiatic being intro- 
duced here is the blight-resistant Chinese 
chestnut. 
Corsan, swimming instructor for all 
California Army, Navy and Aviation 
camps during the World War, and later 
for the national Y. M. C. A., studied trees 
and birds as a hobby. A lecture he deliv- 
ered betore a Battle Creek audience in- 
spired W.-K. Kellogg to create the Bird 
Sanctuary now operated under his name 
by the State of Michigan. Corsan plant- 
ed, stocked and for five years managed 
the sanctuary. In June, 1931, he estab- 
lished a bird sanctuary on the San Gabriel 
River in California. 
The Detroit News Pictorial for April 17, 1938 
i Tee T eee 
George H. Corsan points with his 
pruning shears to where a Circassian 
English walnut tree has been grafted 
to a black walnut tree. Corsan calls 
shade trees “weed trees” because “all 
they produce are leaves and a poor 
quality of wood. Nut trees,” he adds, 
“are beautiful, give shade, furnish an 
easily marketable crop and produce 
valuable wood when through bearing.” 
The famous Asiatic tree hazel, a very hardy tree that will 
grow from 120 to 200 feet high. The nuts are larger than 
native hazel nuts. “Michigan once had many nut trees,” 
says Corsan. They were cut down to make ax handles 
and whiffle-trees. But hey can, and should, be reintro- 
uced.” 
This tree 1s nine years old. 
