Growing Nuts in the North

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he name of "cordiformis" added to its species name. There are many of these sports, some of which have been p

ms are catkins eight to ten inches long, which, when fully ripened, swish in the wind and release clouds of yellow pollen. The heartnut tree holds the interest of its owner closely during that time when the nuts resulting from the racemes of blossoms are steadily increasing in size. I have seen as many as sixteen nuts on one stem and doubtless, there s

utside shell is smooth. Cultivated varieties usually crack easily and in such a way that the kernel is released in

black walnut, but the weather was cold that season and it was killed down to the graft joint, where it threw out a sprout. This was weak and succulent by fall and the graft was entirely killed back that winter. I bought twelve more Lancaster heartnuts a year later. They were interspersed in the orchard among s

shelters with forest leaves and protecting them against mice with screen covers. No doubt this was a decided help; at least all of these heartnuts lived for many years until the invasion of the butternut curculio and the damage done by the yellow bellied sap sucker bird caused me the loss of all except on

is is not well understood any more than is the fact, in my experience, that the Stabler walnut will graft readily and the Ten Eyck persistently refuses to. A good feature that the

verting to that of the ordinary Japanese walnut, which looks more like a butternut and has a rather rough shell as di

f pollen from black walnuts, butternuts, with some English walnuts). Since irregularities in size and shape indicate hybridity frequently and since heartnuts are easily hybridized I have assumed

ns sieboldiana cordiformis). Variety Gellatly, fr

oil may have been uncongenial. Today there remains but three trees, none of which have borne but all indicate that they are true heartnuts from the shape of the leaves and color of the bark and general formation. In order to hasten their bearing, scions have been taken from these small trees and will be grafted on large black walnut stocks to bring them into

Photo 10/26/38 by C. We

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rving of lovers' names, as scars still visible on such ancient trees testify. The wood itself is dense and hard, even more so than hard maple, and is considered good lumber. Beechnut is one of the few nut trees with a more shallow and ramified roo

ing sample of their flavor. This, of course, prevents their having any commercial value as a nut. There is also the fact that the beechnut is the slowest growing of all the common nut trees, requiring from twenty to thirty years to come into bearing as a seedling. Of

ctorily, some even growing about a foot, within two or three years they had all died. I decided they were not hardy but I now realize that the character of the soil was responsible for their gradual death; they should be planted in a limestone or calcareous soil, preferably of the fine sandy type, the mai

Although these trees were set in sandy soil, there are now only about five of them alive, and o

s of rodents are very fond of bark and young growth of these trees a

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oaks, which bears good acorns. The nuts, which are long and thin, are generally infested with weevils. If there were a demand for such a nut tree, I'm sure that it could easily be grafted on oak roots. During favor

t a flock of goats in good condition by feeding them acorns during the winter. It isn't necessary to grind them for such use. I have read that Indians at one time prepared acorns

wn and loved for is the beauty of their leaves in the autumn. No one doubts their esthetic value,

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a large, beautiful tree with wide-spread branches. Chestnuts do not grow well on limestone soil and always fail in the heavy blue

tnut. It is said that this is one of few woods to give a warning groan under too heavy a burden before it cracks or breaks. Chestnut wood is very durable in contact with the s

d a crop of nuts from it that year, but none developed. The same thing happened in 1938. I then wrote to Miss Riehl about it, also asking her where to look for the pistillate blossoms. Her reply was a very encouraging one in which she wrote that the pistillate blossoms appear at the base of the catkins or staminate blooms, but that it is quite a common thing for chestnut trees to carry the latter for sever

tree with pollen from a Chinese variety called Ca

ly we can expect chestnuts to be a more reliable crop than butternuts,

H. F. Stoke, and John Hershey. Some of these were seedlings and some were grafted trees, not over a dozen of them alive today and none have produced mature nuts. Seemingl

ecords show that this plant began to bear nuts in 1943 and have subsequently borne several crops in between the times that it was frozen to the ground and grew up again, which happened at least three times. Like most chestnuts this one has to be pollinated by taking the staminate bloom from a dwarfed chestnut nearby whose bloom coincides with the blossoming of the female flowers of this Chinese hybrid. Chestnuts rarely set any nuts that produce mature seed from their own pollen but depend on cross-pollination. The nut from this hybrid is also the largest of any that I have grow

ees sent by the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture for testing this far north. Fair

the nuts, again showing the importance of the cross-pollinating varieties when setting out an orchard of trees. This particular chinquapin type chestnut has upright growing habits different from a tree bearing similar nuts but having a very dwarfed habit. All of the nuts of the latter after six years of bearing can be picked off this tree by standing on the ground. There are several other trees bearing chestnuts, some large and some small nuts, all of which are interesting to me and may be important in th

an Chestnut (Castanea Sativa) and its American cousin (

Nuts grow in racemes of burrs with as many

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escription of my work with it. But the apricot seed has a rich kernel which, in many countri

o owned it. Convinced of the hardiness of the tree, I was anxious to obtain scionwood but it was not until late that winter that I received permission to do so. It happened that a truck had broken off a large branch from the tree while delivering coal, and the owner very reas

s are a mottled red with raised surfaces. Their pits are well-formed and fairly edible. Although the parent tree died the winter I took scions from it, my grafts have proved quite hardy, having received no injury when temperatures as low a

selected for such reasons as the quality of its fruit. It may happen that the top part of a tree is limited in its climatic scope because of its inability to withstand precipitate or otherwise unfavorable temperatures. Having observed that certain grafted varieties of fruit trees, such as the Wealthy apple, for instance, have gradually come to be planted much farther north than they originally were, I reasoned that this was becaus

s added to it. After the fifth re-graft of this apricot made in eight years, I am convinced by its appearance and behavior that it is capable of becoming a reliable apricot for the region around St. Paul. Today the apricot still exists grafted on plum at my nursery at River Falls, Wisconsin, and the weakness of the tree seems to be in the union between the top and the plum stock. If this