Page:Tree Crops; A Permanent Agriculture (1929).pdf/243

 THE EASTERN BLACK WALNUT 185

of Dr. Robert T. Morris he started with a diligent search for the best varieties of American nuts. By offering prizes he set many people to hunting for nuts. This process has been repeated many times by the Northern Nut Growers' Association. The United States Department of Agriculture is also continually on the lookout for new varieties.

As a result of extended search several varieties of black walnuts are now considered worthy of commercial propagation. Several others are believed to be of great merit, but having been only recently discovered there has not been time to test them. One of the varieties most favorably known is the Stabler. The nuts come out of the shell very easily, usually in unbroken halves. Some of the nuts have kernels of only one lobe of meat, which comes out in one piece. The tree is a slow grower, apparently a rather poor feeder, and, all things considered, is perhaps no better than half a dozen others now under test."

The Thomas and Ohio varieties have fruited at Fairhaven. Vt.—winter temperature —30° F. The Stabler and Ten Eyck are not hardy there.

The first orchard of black walnut trees to make a commercial income was that of E. A. Riehl of Alton, Illinois, who planted some gulch banks and bluff sides overlooking the Mississippi River to walnuts and chestnuts.

™"The tree (parent tree still standing twenty miles north of Washington. D. C.) is about twelve feet in circumference, has a spread of limbs of seventy-five feet and bore sixteen bushels of nuts this year. The tree is said to be about sixty years old and has a timber value of about one hundred and fifty dollars. Tradition has it that this is a grafted tree and that the cions were brought from Baltimore County. Maryland, about sixty years ago by John K. Harvey, an expert apple grafter. There seems to be some foundation for this tradition." (Letter. T. P. Littlepage. Washington. D. C.. December 14, 1915.)

"So far as I can find out it has not missed a crop in its bearing year in the memory of any man that knows the tree. It bears only in the odd years, and usually about fifteen bushels. The old branches do not bear one walnut in even years, but in late years some watersprouts that grew up where the

top was broken in the hurricane of 1896 have been bearing about half a bushel." (Henry Stabler. Washington. D. C.. January 26, 1916.)