Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting: Lancaster, Pennsylvania, December 18 and 19, 1912
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting: Lancaster, Pennsylvania, December 18 and 19, 1912
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
It is probable that most nuts will grow wherever the peach will. Outside
the peach area there is probably not much use in trying to grow the
pecan or Persian walnut. Yet it must always be remembered that nut
growing in the North is, at present, almost entirely experimental and
that anybody may be able to disprove the authorities. We are all
experimenting now. By and by it will be different.
In severer climates the chestnut, shagbark, black walnut, butternut,
hazel, beech, pine, Japanese cordiformis and hardy Chinese walnuts can
be grown or, at least, offer possibilities. In such climates the
development of the native nuts by selection and crossing, and the
adaptation of alien nuts, deserves, and will repay, experiment.
It is to be supposed, as before said, that the hopeful beginner already
has his land. Let him choose the best part of it that he can spare. By
"best part" is meant the most fertile, not too wet nor too dry nor, if
possible, too hilly to cultivate. Hard pan near the surface, and too
thick to be easily broken up by dynamite, is not desirable.
A nut orchard ought to have much the same preparation as an apple
orchard. A practical way would be to plow deeply and harrow well in
summer and sow a cover crop like rye and vetch or clover. The more
stable manure, or other fertilizer, applied the better.
Let the field now be staked off thirty feet apart in squares, or in
triangles if preferred. Late in the fall dig the holes and plant nuts,
three or four in each hole, two to four inches deep, according to size,
and six inches apart. Put a good handful of ground bone in each hill.
Unless the soil and subsoil are mellow, so that the long tap roots may
penetrate deeply, it would be best to dynamite the holes, using a half
pound of 20 per cent or 25 per cent dynamite at a depth of two and a
half feet. This is a simple matter and the dynamite companies will
furnish materials and instructions. It is also some fun.
There is some danger that nuts planted in fall may be destroyed by
rodents, that some will "lie over" and not sprout the first year, or
that all the nuts in a hill may make inferior plants, so that some
authorities advise putting them in a galvanized wire cage, the nuts only
half buried, then covered with a few leaves during the winter and
otherwise left exposed to the elements. In the spring they must be taken
from the cage and planted in the hills before the sprouts are long
enough to be easily broken.
The different kinds of nuts should be planted in "blocks" rather than
mingled, to facilitate handling.
These nuts are to furnish trees that are later to be grafted or budded.
After they have grown a while the weaker ones are to be removed, as
necessary, until only the strongest remains in each hill. When grafted
and grown to great size the brave man will thin them out to sixty feet
apart. Interplanting with fruits or vegetables may be practised.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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