Growing Nuts in the North

osey, Indiana and Niblack, as well as some hiccan trees, i.e., hybrids having pecan and hickory parents. Only one tree survived, a Niblack pecan, which, after sixteen years, was only ab

pecan trees in Iowa. He was S. W. Snyder of Center Point, Iowa. (He later became president of the Association.) In one of his letters to me the following summer, Mr. Snyder mentioned that there were wild pecan trees growing near Des Moines

rtilizing compound around about half of these seedlings which greatly increased their rate of growth, although they became less hardy than the unfertilized ones. After five years, I transplanted a number of them to better soil, in orchard formation. Although I have only about fifty of the original three hundred seedlings, having lost

l from my first planting, the largest being about 25 feet high with a caliber of five inches a foot above ground. Although this tree did not bear nuts I have used it as a source of scionwood for several years. These graftings, made on

tag fastened by 16 or 18 gauge

haded by large trees on the boulevard, that Mr. Hope caused it to be cut down. The variety is still growing

r growth and was luxuriantly healthy and in bloom when it was cut down by the owner becaus

ishes and is quite large (in 1952 at breast height, 6 inches in

maker, presumably exists at his lake residence north of St.

and Major varieties of northern pecan and find them preferable to northern bitternut stocks with which the pecans are not compatible for long, as a rule, such a union resulting in a stunted tree which is eas

ed. I decided to move them and asked one of the men on the farm to dig them up. When he had dug the first, I was surprised to find that this was a sprout from the main tap root of a large pecan tree which had been taken out and transplanted. The same was true of the second one, except that in this case we found three tap roots, the two outside ones both having shoots which were showing above the ground

t my farm. Both Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Weber gathered scionwood from all the black walnut, pecan, hiccan and hickory trees at their disposal, for this trial. There was enough of it to keep three of us busy for a week grafting it on large trees. Our equipment was carried on a two-wheeled trailer attached to a Diesel-powered tractor, and we were saved the tro

work we were doing, but I wanted to check his grafting performance and urged him to continue with his own (an adaptation of the bark-slot graft to the end of a cut-off stub). We both used paper sacks to shade our grafts. Although results proved that my methods averaged a slightly higher percentage of successful

burlap bags stuffed with leaves over the grafts, the bags braced on the inside by laths

Rapids, Taylor, B

y, Des Moines, Rockville

t hickory roots were grafted on pecan stocks, but they proved

rcumference breast height, 125 ft. spread and 125 ft. height. V

ll suited to the climate of the 45th parallel. In 1938, I received from Dr. W. C. Deming of Connecticut, some very good nuts from a large pecan tree at Hartford, Connecticut. Of the twelve pecans

ed. First crop October 29, 1953. 7/8 of actual s

h to advocate its being grown in this climate. There are other hiccans hardier than it is, however, such as the Rockville, Burlington, Green Bay and Des Moines, and it is certain that the North is assured of hardy pecans and a few hardy hybrids, which, although they do not bear the choicest pecan nuts, make interesting and beautiful lawn trees. Indeed, as an ornamental tree, the pecan is superior to the native hickory in two definite ways: by its exceedingly long life, which may often reach over 150 years as contrasted with

illustrates, by means of a ruler, the actual size of these pecans, and the fact that they matured so well by October 30 indicates that in many seasons they may be relied upon to mature their crop. No other data has been acquired on this variety and we can only be thankful that we can expect it to do a little better in si