Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting: Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting: Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
Sometimes I think trees are as temperamental as people. Some trees,
especially the apple, lose their value because they are subject to
certain diseases. Some are susceptible to scab, blight, codling moth,
rots, blotch, and other diseases, to a point where they become worthless
as commercial varieties. The honey locust has been considered one of the
trees on farms to be destroyed, because it was thought to be worthless.
Now, its value is being found in the correcting of sugar deficiency in
dairy cattle. The pods of the honey locust are one of the best foods to
correct sugar deficiency and cattle like them and eat them freely. I
have on my farm a thornless honey locust that produced ten bushels of
pods one year. The honey locust is also a legume and produces nitrogen
which, in turn, is used by the pasture grasses and makes more pasture
for the cattle.
The mulberry tree that ripens when cherries are ripe has a value in the
fact that every mulberry eaten by a bird saves a cherry and the birds
are valuable because they destroy insects that cause the worms in
cherries.
After observing trees for years, I am convinced that there are certain
strains or families of trees in the forest that have outstanding traits.
Those traits in growth might be dwarfs or they may be giants; they may
have short lives or long lives, like different varieties of apples. The
fruit or seeds may be large or small. I believe as reforestation
progresses there will be certain trees located which have value as seed
trees and which will improve the forest equal to the improvement in
livestock on the farms today. The razor back hog that roamed the forest
is gone and has been replaced by animals much improved; yet, the forest
in which it roamed is the same. Now we are turning to man made forests
and a chance to improve them by selecting the more valuable trees for
our source of seed. In the native hickory and black walnut, there is a
great need for more interest in searching for and preserving the most
valuable trees for their cracking quality, flavor, and productivity.
There have been and are now, nut trees on farms that were valuable
trees, but were known only to the owner and the small boys of the
community. These trees should have been preserved for posterity, but
many of them are lost forever.
In forestry, a tree's value may be in its ability to re-seed itself. In
the kinds of pine, the Virginia pine is one of the best, and also, one
of the youngest to produce seed cones. I have counted twenty-five cones
on a five year old Virginia Pine tree. In forestry, the red cedar is
good to re-seed itself in the area in which it grows. The maple ash,
cotton wood, and poplar also grow freely from nature's seeding.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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