Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting: Guelph, Ontario, September 3, 4, 5, 1947
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting: Guelph, Ontario, September 3, 4, 5, 1947
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
_Mulberries_--This great chicken, bird and hog feed will some day fill a
definite place in the sun of the American farmer, just as it does in
Asia. The drawbacks are lack of hardiness and short bearing season in
the north. The Hicks variety bears for six to eight weeks but is not
hardy north of the Mason-Dixon line. This year we have grafted eight
varieties of which seven are new. One from southern Indiana, an American
seedling selected by a mulberry enthusiast, bears for six to eight
weeks. Will it be hardy farther north? We shall know soon. Six are from
select seedlings of L. K. Hostetter, of Lancaster, Pa., the mulberry
king of America. The other is a fine white, a chance seedling from 75
miles north of Pittsburgh. It has not borne yet but was far hardier than
Downing last winter. I have a few of these to sell this fall. Mulberries
need sweet soil to prevent winter killing. On worn out soils we have
discovered that they do well until established, by applying a few
handfuls of lime around the tree at planting time. Not only are they
excellent for the above mentioned uses but the right varieties are
better than raisins when dried.
In 1945 we set a leaky corner of sandy meadow to honey locusts. I saw
them growing in semi-swamp land in Alabama, but here all but two of the
18 trees died. When replanted in 1946 also they died. I found the two
that were living were carelessly planted too shallow, with the top roots
sticking out of the ground. We replanted more trees in the spring of
1947 with the top roots above the ground level, mounded soil over them
about 6 to 10 inches, then mulched. They are all growing fine.
_Starting a Tree Crop Farm. What Is It?_--It consists of a blended,
balanced program of cattle, hogs, poultry and sheep pasturing under
mulberries, honey locust, persimmons, oaks, etc., plus the hog feed from
the refuse chestnuts, walnuts and Chinese dates. The great secret of
nature is that your security lies in a balanced land use between animal
and plant production with crops for animals, and animal manure for the
crops, with a margin of each for the profit book. I bought this
abandoned swampy, rocky, sandy soil farm of 72 acres, to show how it can
be done on land too rough for the plow. The first requirement was to
work out a program with permanent crops to bring in a continuous return,
while planting and developing the slower bearing nuts and crop trees. I
have found you must live on the farm a year to learn which soils and
sites are best for a species. For instance, the field that fitted my
plan to plant walnuts is too wet, so there we shall plant the hickories,
pecans and hicans with persimmons as fillers. The place where I wanted
walnuts was too sandy, so we shall plant chestnuts and filberts, and
where I wanted chestnuts the soil is good for walnuts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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