Some New Hicans and Pecans in Illinois

From J. G. Duis, Shattuc, Illinois

(Read by Title)

I am writing a short account of the new nuts I have discovered in this vicinity, all in the Kaskaskia River Valley and not one fifty miles away. The Duis, Swagler, Joffrey and Carlyle pecans. The Duis black walnut. The Gerardi and Nussbaumer hicans. And the Dintleman hybrid.

The Duis pecan grows about four miles up the river from Carlyle. I claim it as the largest northern pecan in existence, with the Swagler not far second in size. Both have been bearing the two years I have known them, the Duis rather prolifically. However, it was so severely whipped last fall, and the season so dry this year, that I do not expect a crop off either tree, though I have not visited them as they are rather inaccessible. Both graft fairly well, especially the Swagler.

The Joffrey pecan grows alone in a corn field south of Pelican Pouch, a glacial moraine south of Carlyle about six miles. It is the plumpest, thinnest shelled nut of northern variety, and above average size. Fair bearer to the best of my knowledge, but a severe hail storm and a season of severe walnut caterpillars ruined two years' prospects. The Carlyle pecan grows in the State Fish Hatchery and Park at Carlyle, and I have only the word of the "game warden" and caretaker for size and quality. The same hail and caterpillar pest hit that tree. The Duis black walnut is from a scrub tree on Shoal Creek, about five miles northwest of Carlyle and is about crowded out by other trees. My oldest grafted tree from it is about seven years old and has been bearing consistently since two years old. Even this year, after two severe dry seasons, and a late frost that nipped the early shoots, it has a fine crop even though other trees, grafted and seedlings, are mostly barren. The nuts are medium to rather large and readily crack out in halves comparable to the Stabler when properly prepared for cracking. There are so many new walnuts I know nothing about that I presume there are better ones.

I claim only secondary credit for "resurrecting" the Nussbaumer hican and the Dintleman hybrid, presumably king hickory and bitternut. The Nussbaumer is the hybrid mentioned in Fuller's Nut Culturist some fifty years ago. I thought of this for several months and corresponded regarding this nut and finally made a couple of trips down the river to Mascoutah and vicinity. I could hardly find a man old enough to know Mr. Nussbaumer, who was a druggist there. Later he removed to Okawville and from there to Texas, where he died a number of years ago. I was advised to see an old nurseryman by the name of Jacob Leibrock, now deceased. I was told he had two of the trees from seed. He had, but both bore bitternuts and he had cut them down. I did not think till later that they probably were not from the Nussbaumer tree and when I wrote for more information he had passed away. He advised me to see two men toward Fayetteville down the river. The first one did not know where the tree was. The second one did but was too busy to go to it, so I hired him to go as soon as possible and advise me and if possible send me some samples and I would return later. From what he told me I was sure I was off the track of the Nussbaumer, but on the trail of a new and better nut. He said the tree bore "sacks full" and the nuts were so thin shelled you could crack them in your hand. I went farther down the river to Fayetteville, not far from which place east the tree was located, but was there informed the tree was dead. However, the informer told me he had a seedling from it, but upon investigation found he had a fullblood pecan, probably planted by a jaybird from a number of bearing trees in close proximity, for I was satisfied by this time the nut was not even part pecan. The two original nuts probably never grew. The innkeeper advised me that Mr. Dintleman, a nurseryman of Belleville, Ill., had been much interested in the nuts and might have a tree. So I wrote him asking about it and also wrote Mr. C. A. Reed, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. Mr. Dintleman wrote me that our well known Mr. J. F. Wilkinson, had a seven-year-old budded tree from buds he sent. And Mr. Reed advised me to write a farm advisor in Missouri. Through him I was informed a Mr. George Miller, near Bluffton, son of Judge Miller, mentioned in Fuller's book, had a tree thirty years old. In short, I found not only the one tree I was after but a second king hickory and bitternut cross with a shell so thin you could "crack it with your hands." Shall we call it a Hickbit? Mr. Wilkinson sent me graftwood and stated he expected we call it the Dintleman. The Nussbaumer, Mr. Miller informed me, is not a good bearer, but it may be due to location or lack of pollinization. I now have several trees of each from spring grafts.

All the above trees grow in overflow ground, sometimes in water for weeks, called slashes. The Stabler walnut also seems to like that, but the Thomas does not and is outgrown by the three-year-old Stablers. I will know more about that in a year or two. However, nearly all grow very well on the prairie land around here and some seem to bear better.

May I add another observation. Cultivation will produce bigger, better and more nuts, same as for corn.

Evening session.

Dr. Deming:

I'd like to speak for a moment about some old friends, one of whom we shall never see any more, Mr. Bixby. If you will take the trouble to go back through our annual reports and see the number of articles he has written and the diversity of subjects he has written on, and see what an important part he has taken in our discussions, you will get a good idea of the ability and broad-mindedness, the scientific knowledge and the honesty of Mr. Bixby. There is one thing that perhaps you don't all know, and that is that his collection of nuts has been sold to the United States Government. There is something fewer of you know and that is that this sale was brought about by the persistent energy, mental and physical, of Mr. Reed.

The other old friend, whom we shall perhaps never see again at a meeting, is Dr. Morris. I've seen him twice this summer, had several letters from him, and lunched with him once. He has with him his devoted wife and his little daughter and he appears to be fairly well. He doesn't look very different from what he has when he attended our meetings. He is up and around and he walked about the place for fifteen or twenty minutes with Mrs. Morris and me looking at his trees.

Some other old friends that I would like to call to your attention are our past reports. I suppose that I have read those reports more times than anybody else, since I have edited nearly all of them. I go back over them occasionally even now and I have been astonished to find the value of the papers and discussions that are contained there. I recommend to all of you who have these reports to make a review of them and see how many things were known during the early years of our association, as Mr. Walker has said, that we are now rehashing. When you go over the names of the men who made up the membership of the association in its early days, men whom many of you perhaps have never seen, or have seen very seldom, you can understand how these pioneers in nut growing would have had something interesting to say.

I've made a little list of names of these men, some of whom are gone, and the rest of whom we seldom see. Dr. Morris, Prof. Craig, Henry Hales, Prof. Close, Prof. Hutt, W. N. Roper, W. C. Reed, Prof. Collins, E. A. Riehl, Dr. Van Fleet, Prof. Van Deman, J. G. Rush, Mr. Jones, Mr. Littlepage, Mr. Bixby, Dr. Smith, Prof. E. R. Lake, S. W. Snyder, Mrs. Erlanger, Col. Sober, Prof. Drake and many others. I think it will pay you all to look back through those annual reports and see what the pioneer nut growers of this country have recorded.

Mr. Reed, I was saying that Mr. Bixby's collection of nut trees had been sold to the Government and that it was through your help that this sale was made. Now I'd like to ask you if there is any information that you could properly release to the meeting about the sale of those trees. I am sure everyone of us would be interested to know where they are going.

Mr. Reed:

The trees have been bought by the Interior Department with funds placed at their disposal for the purpose of planting trees for the national forests. Their attitude has been rather liberal in this case. They have felt that if they could get trees planted, regardless of whether they were planted on Interior Department land or not, it would be justified expense. When the matter was laid before them, they at once thought of the arboretum which is now being developed within the District of Columbia. The final purchase was made largely in order that the arboretum might be able to start off with the Bixby collection as a nucleus. A complete list of all varieties that are in the collection will go there. Another part of the purchase comes to the branch of the Agricultural Department which I represent, and practically all of the varieties in the Bixby collection which are not now in the plant at Beltsville will be sent there.

It was the original plan of the Interior Department that all of the trees which neither the arboretum nor the branch of the department which I represent needed, should go to the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, and it was with that understanding that the deal was closed. After the deal was closed and a notice was sent to the authorities in charge at the park that a certain number of seedlings of different species and a certain number of grafted trees would be delivered there sometime this fall, the Shenandoah authorities took the strange attitude that they couldn't use grafted trees. In other words, they preferred mongrels to thoroughbreds. We chuckled in our sleeves. But nevertheless they threw back upon us several grafted trees to find some place for. We immediately took it up with the Forest Service. They have land in North Carolina where all of the trees can be planted fifty feet apart, not cultivated, but nursed and cared for, and available for study by our own department and the state of North Carolina and any individuals.

I have omitted mentioning that there are certain limitations on the ability of the Interior officials to buy trees for Interior Department planting. It is a definite policy of the Interior Department that in all national parks they plant only American species. That automatically eliminated many trees of the Bixby collection. But the arboretum wanted a good many of those trees and so did we.

There are still in the Bixby collection several fine Persian walnut trees. We haven't been able to trace their source, but it is my impression that they are of Chinese origin.

Dr. Deming:

He had a row of Pomeroy trees.

Prof. Slate:

He also had some trees from Chinese seed, because he sent some of them to Geneva.

Mr. Reed:

We have the Bixby correspondence. By the terms of the purchase Mrs. Bixby was to deliver to the Interior Department all of Mr. Bixby's records pertaining to those trees, and as far as she has been able to get things together they have been turned over to me.

Dr. Deming:

In addition to our annual reports I want to say a word about the reports of the National Pecan Growers' Association. Twenty-five years ago I took out a life membership in that association for $10.00, and I have been getting annual reports ever since. While they relate almost exclusively to the southern pecan they have also many scientific articles on the development of twigs, blossoms and fruit, on pruning and grafting and on fertilizing and cultivating, which are of importance to all nut growers.

I think perhaps I won't go into the subject which has been talked of so much today, the severe winter and summer we have had. But J. G. Rush in our third annual report has a paper which is entitled, "The Persian Walnut, Its Disaster, Etc.," which describes events twenty-two years ago very similar to those that have taken place in the last winter.