Notes on the Commercial Cracking of Black Walnuts

By H. F. Stoke, Roanoke, Virginia

A year ago I reported to this body an experiment in the commercial production of black walnut kernels by factory methods, including the use of a power-driven cracking device. During the past year the experiment was continued, with the variation that the shelling was done as a home industry rather than as a factory operation. Ten families were furnished with hand-power cracking devices and the whole nuts were delivered to their homes. The workers received 10c per pound for cracking and picking out the kernels and in addition retained the shells for fuel. Forty-five thousand pounds of nuts were used in the experiment for which a uniform price of $1 per hundred weight was paid.

The more efficient and conscientious workers produced as high as 15% of kernels per unit of whole nuts, which was slightly better than the production by factory methods. The general average, however, was around 12½%, or about the same for both methods. As to quality of product there was no appreciable difference. It is necessary to exercise greater care in the selection of workers where the work is done in homes without supervision than in the factory. By actual experience it was found that some workers would produce less than half the percentage made by the more efficient workers. Such workers were dropped.

Where relatively small quantities of nuts are to be shelled there is little to be chosen between the home-industry method and such factory method as was used by me. The cost of delivering the nuts to the homes may be roughly set over against the cost of operating a factory. Based on the hours of work required to produce a given quantity of kernels, the factory method is more efficient. On the other hand, the home worker will work for a smaller wage per hour. Where large quantities of nuts are available, commercial cracking by machine methods will be increasingly used in the future, especially if economic conditions so far improve that people will no longer work for starvation wages. Point is given to this observation by the fact that local buyers paid from 8 to 15c for country-produced kernels last season, while my bare cost, without overhead or profit, was 20c per pound.

The most notable advance that has come to my attention during the past year in the way of commercial production of black walnut kernels is that contributed by Mr. C. E. Werner, President of the Forest Park Nut Company, of Ottawa, Kansas. Mr. Werner, who is 84 years of age and a veteran inventor with several notable inventions to his credit, has designed and built a machine that seems to mark a new era in black walnut kernel production. This machine, which is mounted on a truck, is not only used for the local operations of the company, but is moved from place to place in the performance of custom work, after the manner of a grain threshing outfit. Mention is made in company correspondence of cracking twenty thousand bushels of nuts for one customer in southwest Missouri. The following details were supplied by the manager of the company.

The machine has a capacity of from 75 to 100 pounds of kernels per hour. As they come from the machine they carry not more than 10% shells, and run from 28 to 30% full quarters. After being hand cleaned the net recovery of kernels represents from 10 to 11½% of the weight of the whole nuts. Custom work is charged for at the rate of from 3 to 5c per pound for the kernels produced. The cost of the final hand cleaning and packaging is given as 2c per pound, which makes a total production cost of from 5 to 7c per pound.

The operation of the machine may be briefly described as follows: The nuts are run through a revolving screen which separates and cleans them from all adhering husk and grades them into three sizes. They then pass through the cracker and thence, by conveyor belt, to the picker. This ingenious device holds the broken nuts with soft rubber rolls while a set of fingers literally pick the kernels from the shells. Careful sifting is the last step as the kernels leave the machine, after which they are hand-picked to remove any remaining pieces of shell. The owners advise that the machine has been built primarily for their own use, and has not yet been offered for sale. They would, however, consider building the machines for sale.

While the subject assigned me did not include the marketing of kernels, I cannot refrain from stating that no commodity is in greater need of orderly, organized marketing. In the meantime I would urge the small producer to cultivate his own local market as far as possible and refuse to produce at unprofitable prices.

Cracked black walnuts make an excellent supplementary feed for growing chicks and laying hens.

I advertised in the Rural New Yorker, The American Magazine and Better Homes and Gardens. Mr. Hershey advised me I would go broke advertising but I wanted to see what would happen. The Rural New Yorker gave the best results. I got $1.25 for a 2-lb. package. The kernels were in clean, first-class condition. I noticed some were advertised as low as 95c for two pounds. Some people in answering my advertisement said they had bought others that were not in first-class condition. I had no complaints about mine. In Better Homes and Gardens I did not get enough orders to pay for my advertising. I would not advise anyone to advertise there or in the American Magazine, as I got very poor results. I even got a bad check. The Rural New Yorker was very satisfactory.

The prices I paid locally were from .05 to .08 and sometimes .10 to .15 to old customers. Twelve and a half cents was the average price. I think maybe I should have advertised in a confectioners' journal in order to reach a large consumer source, but I felt at the time that I was using the only way I had of reaching a market.

This carton (showing a mailing container) is a 2-pound carton which I used in shipping in response to mail orders. It makes a very nice package that is received in good condition. I might add that the contents are 50 cubic inches.

Question: Do you use a paper bag inside?

Mr. Stoke: I line it with wax paper. I made a form and fold the wax paper around it to get the size. This makes a neat lining and then I just pour in the nuts and fold the top down.

Mr. Graham: Do you notice much difference in the kernels?

Mr. Stoke: Not in black walnuts. I found a few nuts which I could not use. The best nuts I found this year were in and about our locality.

Mr. Smith: Did you try offering prizes? Mr. Hershey and I once got almost tipsy testing a lot of walnuts in a prize contest.

Mr. Stoke: No. The best nuts I got would score not higher than the Thomas. They were brought in by different people and mixed together so that I was unable to tell their source.

The President: Do you do your separating of kernel and shell by hand?

Mr. Stoke: Yes. I use sieves, too. I use first a ¾ x ¾ inch mesh. It will take out most of the shell. Then for a minimum size, the best is 8 mesh to an inch, as used by the Forest Park Nut Co., Ottawa, Kans. This is smaller mesh and eliminates the smaller bits of shell.

Mr. Hershey: Did you have any correspondence with those people?

Mr. Stoke: I was interested in their machine for cracking nuts and I wrote the company a letter. Two or three months later I received a letter from Mr. Werner, a son of Mr. C. E. Werner, and who signed himself as Len Werner of the Werner Steel Products Co., and I received details and facts about the machine. He asked me if I would be interested in buying a machine or renting on a basis of kernel production. The younger Mr. Werner said they built the machine for themselves but could supply orders if they came in.

Miss Sawyer: Did you get any information on the price?

Mr. Stoke: No, none whatever. It seems to be taken from place to place mounted on a truck and cracks the nuts right on the job.

Mr. Reed: Do you have any difficulty in cracking nuts when they are dry?

Mr. Stoke: The nut cracks best when not too wet or too dry but just right. If too dry, they are too brittle and you break up the kernels too much, also get too many spalls of shells. If wet you have other troubles. In the South and Southwest the summers get hot and so some nuts get rancid. The sweet type that have less oil seem to stand up better.

Question: Do you ever steam nuts before cracking?

Mr. Stoke: No, I haven't. To keep them in a damp atmosphere is also not good. Nuts should be kept dry while in storage. Kernels should also be kept in a dry place. I put them in trays of wire mesh and if the nuts are too green or I am in a hurry for them, I turn on the electric fan.

Last Fall I put some in cold storage in December. I also put some in cold storage in May and I found that I would not have needed to put any in cold storage until May as they have kept just as nicely as those stored earlier. But I find it is essential to have the kernels thoroughly dried before they are put away. If thoroughly dried they will not mold, but if kept in too warm a place they will turn rancid. To keep them in a damp atmosphere is also not good. If they are treated right they will keep indefinitely.

Dr. Zimmerman: Mr. Stoke, how many nuts did you crack?

Mr. Stoke: About 40,000 or 50,000 lbs.

Mr. Reed: What did you do with screenings?

Mr. Stoke: I fed them to the chickens. Some said that they would keep the chickens from laying but I found that by mixing about 25% with ordinary mash it worked fine.

Mr. Hershey: Did you find that it made the egg shells hard?

Mr. Stoke: No, the chickens had too much sense.

Question: What percent do you lose in sieving?

Mr. Stoke: When I did my fine sieving, I used a 4-inch screen. The shells were taken out entirely. I lost, maybe, 4%.

Prof. Reed: Do you people in Virginia have local names for different types of walnuts? What is the swamp black walnut?

Mr. Stoke: My own opinion is that there is only one black walnut in the East. We have a butternut that some people call the English walnut and some the white walnut. The Japanese walnut is sometimes called an English walnut. We also have the English or Persian walnut.

Prof. Reed: I believe the botanists recognize only the one black walnut.

Prof. Slate: I do not think there is more than one kind.

Mr. Stoke: It is interesting to know that while the black walnut has been higher in price than the English walnut, so that manufacturers have been substituting the English walnut for the black walnut, this year the black walnut has dropped as much as 10c per pound under the English and is now about 5c, I believe. Consequently the black walnut has come into its own and is now being substituted for the English walnut.

Mr. Frey: I would like to mention alternate years in bearing. If apple trees can be made to give a fair crop each year by good care, feeding and spraying, it is my thought that walnut trees will do the same thing under the same conditions. But we must remember that forming the hard shell is a most difficult thing for a tree to do.

Prof. Neilson: I should like to draw your attention to a drawing sent me by J. U. Gellatly. (The paper was held up for all to see.) Just look at the size of the leaves. That is a tracing of the leaf of a hybrid English walnut and heartnut. He sent it along as evidence of its vigor of growth. This large compound hybrid leaf measured 27 inches from tip of the leaf to the bottom of the last leaflet, exclusive of the stem which was 5 inches long. Many of the larger leaflets measured 5 × 9 inches, shape, oblong ovate, edges of leaf, serrate, total width of compound leaf, 17 inches.

Dr. Smith: I should like to suggest to Mr. Frey that the theory he suggested might be supported if the tree were placed in a particularly favorable location.

Mr. Hershey: I should like to remind the audience of Judge Potter who told me some years ago that on his farm in Southern Illinois he got three doubles of his meadow grove of about 50 hickory trees, by using plenty of good horse manure, phosphoric acid, and potash. The increases were that he doubled the amount of growth and the size of the nut and changed the trees from alternate bearing to yearly bearing.