One by one, our children have lost the simple, inexpensive pleasures of years gone by. Going nutting was one of these pleasures. Nothing gave the youth of an earlier day more delight than excursions to gather chestnuts, black walnuts, or hickory nuts.
The loss of our countless chestnut trees through blight and the constant spread of housing developments have robbed all of us of the joy of going nutting. Yet any homeowner can recapture that delight for himself and his children by planting nut trees on his grounds.
Curiously enough. These productive trees have been almost overlooked as plantings for the home grounds. Yet there are no trees more beautiful, and none offer more desirable landscaping effects.
Furthermore, there is a historic reason for their use. Man has always lived with productive trees. In America, the pioneers fattened their hogs on acorns, chestnuts, pecans, and the like, and our great-grandmothers made much use of rich nut kernels in the diet.
Planting Nut Trees
As though to ensure a supply of this wholesome and delicious food for all men, nature developed nut trees to fit all the different climates and soils of the world. The American chestnut covered a vast area of mountain land from North to South. The black walnut spread widely in the rich bottom lands, as did the hickory. The chinquapin and the hazel were common.
Thus it happens that the householder who wants to plant nut trees in his dooryard has at his command many nut trees of varying size, shape, and cultural needs. Whether your grounds are large or small, whether you need tall, towering trees or small, shrubby ones, whether you wish dense shade, full sun, or sun-flecked shade, there is a nut tree to fit your desires.
Those who want tall, majestic trees with outspread arms which will reach protectively over the rooftop like an arching elm should plant pecans. What many folks do not realize is that there are varieties of pecans that will prosper in the North. Even where the growing season is too short to permit the maturing of nuts, the trees themselves will thrive.
However, the smaller nut trees are more appropriate for the modern homeowner whose grounds are usually limited. Perhaps no nut tree meets this need better than the Chinese chestnut. This beautiful tree produces nuts that are larger than our native chestnuts and fully as excellent in quality.
Chinese Chestnut
The Chinese chestnut, which has been in America only a few decades, was introduced because it had grown in China along with the chestnut blight and so had acquired great resistance to that terrible disease. The American chestnut had never met the blight. When this disease was accidentally brought into this country early in this century, it swept away the American chestnut with appalling rapidity.
The American chestnut was an extremely valuable tree. Not only did it furnish excellent lumber, but the millions of pounds of nuts it produced annually were one of the major sources of food for deer, turkeys, squirrels, and other game.
To replace this lumber supply and to retrain this source of food for wildlife and man, the government, sportsmen, and tree lovers turned to the Chinese chestnut. Thousands of pounds of seed were imported from China, and many thousands of these trees are now growing in America.
Already six varieties of Chinese chestnut have been named and put on the market. The available supply of these named varieties is, however, so limited that planters must still use seedlings.
What sort of tree is this Chinese chestnut? The American chestnut was a tail, towering tree, probably made so by its centuries of struggle upward for sunlight in the American forests. The Chinese chestnut is short and full like an apple tree, probably because the Chinese grew it in the open for nut production. Unlike the American chestnut, it had the opportunity to grow naturally.
Incidentally, the Chinese chestnut. being self-sterile requires cross-pollination. So plant several of these trees.
Characteristics of Chinese Chestnut
An extremely desirable characteristic of the Chinese chestnut is its ability to bear fruit at an early age. At the United States Department of Agriculture experimental grounds in Beltsville, Maryland, where there are many Chinese chestnuts, four-year-old trees are bearing well. But because they are seedling trees, they produce nuts of varying sizes.
Another nut tree that should fit the limited grounds around smaller homes is the shagbark hickory. It is said of the NORTHERN SPY apple that “He who plants a spy, plants for his grandchildren.” I know that it required nineteen years for the NORTHERN Spy trees in my orchard to hear fruit.
It probably takes as long for hickory to produce. However, grafted trees may bear much sooner. The hickory is a shapely tree and, as it grows, tends to become cylindrical so that a mature tree is not much wider than a young one. The foliage is most attractive and its russet-yellow coloring in autumn is a delight.
One of the nut trees which I particularly like is the heartnut Haugland Sieboldiana cordiform). Little is heard about this nut. Yet it is the best cracker among all the hard-shelled nuts. Canadians have planted this nut tree in great numbers, and Canadian nurserymen have developed many varieties.
Varieties of Nut Trees
I have three varieties, but the one I Like best is probably the first that was offered by northern nut tree nurserymen. It is the LANCASTER and was introduced by J. F. Jones of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I like it because of the beauty of the tree and the shape of the nut. The nut has a perfect heart shape.
But the most astonishing feature of the heartnut is the way it cracks. Around it, like the rim on the edge of a peach pit, is a little ridge. Stand the nut on this ridge and give it a sharp tap with a hammer and it splits open like an oyster shell. The kernels usually come out whole.
The compound leaves of the heart-nut are large and beautiful, and the sunlight flickers down through them, making a checkerboard of light and shadow on the lawn beneath. The tree’s fruiting habit is an interesting one. Before the leaves appear in spring, countless huge catkins fringe the branches.
These catkins are often a full 6” inches in length and as thick as one’s little finger. There they sway in the breeze, day after day. The female blooms are so inconspicuous that one seldom notices them, but they produce nuts in great clusters of from ten to fifteen nuts, all hanging from a stiff central stem-like hunch of huge grapes.
Filbert Tree
The filbert is another nut about which we hear too little. Everybody is familiar with filberts, for they are roundish. reddish nuts are found among the mixed nuts sold at Christmas time. The filbert tree is amazing in its ability to adapt itself to different uses.
The trees grow naturally as bushes and can be trained to form hedgerows—if you live in the country. When grown for nuts, the plants are usually trained as single-stemmed trees and are comparable in size to a plum tree.
Filbert trees send up suckers from the roots. Some growers remove all but three or four selected suckers. These few shots will arch outward gracefully, like the stems in a clump of gray birches. If a shrubby growth is desired, all the suckers should be allowed to grow.
The result is a dense bush, ideal for use as a screen, for lining a driveway, or for shutting off a portion of the grounds.
The filbert nuts are borne in leafy involucres that vary in length with the different varieties. In some, the involucre fully covers the nut. In others, the nut peeps out or even projects well outside of the leafy covering.
The filbert, which is of European extraction, and the hazel, which is a native American, although related, should not be grown together. The hazel is subject to a disease to which it has acquired great resistance, but let that disease strike a filbert and the effect is fatal.
Persian Nut Tree
The early English pioneers brought Persian (English) walnuts to America. In the milder latitudes, these prospered. Nut growers have been experimenting in recent years with hardy varieties of this most delicious nut.
The Northern Nut Growers’ Association helped introduce the hardy Carpathian walnut which Rev. Paul Crath brought back to Canada from the Carpathian Mountains in Central Europe twenty years ago. These trees are being tested in many places. The various strains differ in hardiness, but many have proved desirable.
Astonishingly enough, when the Pennsylvania legislature ordered a state-wide nut survey a few years ago, the investigators estimated that there were 10,000 Persian walnut trees in the state. Most of these trees were in private yards.
The Persian walnut is a lovely tree that, with proper cross-pollination, will produce generously. Its foliage casts a dense shade, making it an ideal tree for home grounds. As for hardiness, I have a Persian walnut that has withstood many sub-zero temperatures in its several decades of life.
Black Walnut
The black walnut is still so common that it hardly needs more than a brief mention. Although the pioneers in clearing their lands undoubtedly destroyed the finest walnut trees—and also the finest hickories—several excellent varieties have been found and named, the best of which is probably the THOMAS. The kernels in this nut will usually crack out in perfect halves.
One Thing is to be Born in Mind about Nut Trees
Only recently have they come under cultivation, so that as yet we know all too little about them. My own belief is that it is advisable to let nut trees grow in their way with merely a good mulch to help them.
Plants, such as nut trees and blueberry bushes, that have grown undisturbed under natural conditions for untold thousands of years, do not always take kindly to forcing or other unnatural methods of culture.
I have seen an entire apple orchard destroyed in a single season by fire blight simply because the forcing of the trees had produced so much soft, succulent wood, which is especially susceptible to fire blight.
At first, you will probably be disappointed in your nut trees, for when young they develop great taproots and a relatively little top. Once the root system is established, however, the tops burgeon forth amazingly.
If you want to have trees that give interest and distinction to your grounds, and if you wish your children to share the delights of children of an older day, landscape your home grounds with nut trees.
44659 by Dr. Lewis E. Theiss