Report from Minnesota—Letter from Carl Weschcke to Miss Mildred Jones

The winter of 1942-43 was the most damaging on fruit and nut trees within my experience of 25 years in River Falls, Wisconsin. The main reason was that we had a long wet fall and all vegetation was in a succulent green condition when our first snow storm of September 25th hit us. For other details of this winter and the Armistice Day storm of 1941, the second in its deleterious effect on horticultural varieties, please write Mr. C. G. Stratton, Coop. Observer, of River Falls, Wisconsin, who is in charge of the U. S. Government weather bureau there. Mr. Stratton furnished me with an affidavit showing one of our very coldest winters in which the temperature went down, in February, to 47° below zero. This was in 1936. This winter of extreme cold did very little damage to trees, and an apricot on which I had taken out a plant patent, subsequently called the Harriet apricot, went through this winter without any damage and bore fruit the next year. This gave me such confidence in its hardiness that I began to propagate it for sale. The winter of 1942-43 wiped out practically all of the apricot trees of this variety and all of the early Richmond cherries that had been growing on my farm for nearly twenty years. It killed more than half of the catalpa trees which were nearly as old. It also killed outright a large Stabler black walnut which had been grafted on a Minnesota seedling nearly twenty years previous. This was a fine large flourishing tree that bore each year and I had thought because of this behavior that Stabler was to be considered one of the hardiest of the black walnuts. It had stood up better than Thomas many winters. I could go on enumerating failures of many other varieties and species but it is a long story and a sad one.

To make this report more concise I will now give you my opinion as to what is hardy under these severe tests. To begin with, one of your father's hazel hybrids, of which I have two bushes, stood all of this very well. These bushes, which are perhaps fifteen years old, are still flourishing, although the main trunks are decaying rapidly. Several of the sprouts are blossoming freely. These two bushes have borne only one crop of nuts, although they blossom freely, and the catkins are about as hardy as anything in the filbert line that I have seen. The reason for their not bearing is lack of pollination. I never did find out what was satisfactory, even at the time that I hand-pollinated them to get a crop of nuts. The nuts are much more satisfactory than Winkler or Rush hazels. The Rush is absolutely worthless here; is subject to blight and is very tender to our winters. The Winkler is a very hardy variety, bears something every year. The trouble with the Winkler is that it matures its nuts so late, much later than the Jones' hybrid. I never have propagated your father's hybrid for sale as I did not know a hardy pollinizer for it. I have sold a few Winklers, recommending them for proper locations. I have one Winkler planted by a small lake cottage up at Delta, Wisconsin. This is about thirty miles west of Ashland, Wisconsin. This territory is very uncertain for successful corn raising so the Winkler is quite a hardy bush.

Four hybrid plants that bear worthwhile nuts, which grew from seed planted in 1933 and 1934, are perfectly hardy, almost as hardy as the native wild hazel and hardier than any other worthwhile filbert or hybrid that we have. This hardiness is no doubt due to the fact that the mother plant was an ordinary wild Wisconsin hazel. These hybrids, from the native hazels, we call "Hazilberts," and have obtained a United States trademark on all plants produced after this manner. Here again I have not recommended nor sold any of these because of my lack of knowledge as to the correct pollinizer; this has yet to be developed. They do not pollinize themselves nor do they pollinize each other satisfactorily. They have all the finest characteristics that you could ask for except prolificacy which may be due to the lack of a proper pollinizer. They are the most resistant to the hazel blight of anything that I have worked with so far in 25 years. Hard winters, such as we have had recently, have no deleterious effect on them. They blossom and do not lose any of their wood and apparently there is no injury. They are very vigorous plants and can be trained to a single tree standard or they make very tall-growing vigorous bushes. I have placed these filberts and their hybrids first on my list of recommended trees because they are going to be the backbone of nut tree production.

I have nearly one hundred experimental European filberts, mostly of wild varieties, of which about a dozen are hardy both in pistillate and staminate bloom, even in our most severe winters, although of this dozen only about two or three have nuts which could possibly be considered commercial. Practically all of these are being injured in one way or another by the blight. Many have passed out of existence and only two or three have been able to resist the blight so that it doesn't seem to make any headway. I do not do anything for a blighted filbert—it must take care of itself. I have experimented along these lines, however, using chemicals and other means of protection. I do not know of anything adequate except to build resistance in the plant itself through cross-breeding.

The next really successful plant is the Weschcke butternut. This is a native butternut which I discovered on my own farm. Every local woods has butternut trees in it. We must have at least five hundred butternut trees in our woods; they are subject to some kind of a bark disease but this seems to encroach on the life of the tree very slowly since trees that I remember showing signs of this disease nearly twenty years ago are still living. They are awful looking sights, however, by this time. Such large trees that have developed this blight are possibly in the neighborhood of fifty years old. The Weschcke butternut is a medium size to small butternut. Its great value lies in the fact that it splits exactly in half and the shell structure is so shallow that by merely turning the nut upside down the kernel falls out—nothing to hold it in the shell. Very frequently the kernel stays absolutely intact, its wings being held together by the little tender neck joining them at the point of the nut. The nut kernel is tender and light colored. The difficulty here is grafting them on black walnut roots; after they are grafted they grow very rapidly and bear at once. I have had them bear the first year grafted.

Next in line of hardiness and reliability is the Weschcke hickory. This is now an old-timer; since its successful grafting in 1934 it has borne an ever-increasing crop every year. This is not to be measured in bushels, however, but in pounds. No other hickory nut has begun to touch it, in its regularity, reliability and its quality: that is, no hickory so far north. It is the thinnest shelled hickory of any that I have ever tested out, and releases its kernels about the best of any. It has one fault, however; the staminate blossom is abortive, never produces any pollen. It needs a pollinizer and we have been recommending the Bridgewater and the Kirtland which we know by actual experiments have produced pollen in large amounts, sufficient for pollinization of this tree. Even before Kirtland and Bridgewater pollens were available those trees, grafted to the Weschcke, bore hickory nuts every year, but in very small quantities. I am now quite sure that they borrowed pollen from the wild bitternut trees which are in abundance nearby. There is also the other possibility, which has not been conclusively proved, that this variety is a parthenogen. Innumerable hard frosts in early springs have destroyed butternut crops and walnut crops, but these hickory nuts invariably come through such seasons and escape the early fall frosts, which come in September, for the reason that the nuts are matured usually the second week in September. We therefore can recommend the Weschcke hickory freely. We have not determined how far north it can live, but I believe the 45th parallel is very safe, and as far west as the Dakota line. It originated at Fayette, Iowa, and probably would thrive far into the south. It grafts extremely well on the wild bitternut hickory root which is about the hardiest known. Your father was very partial toward it as a stock. This root system does not handle all hickories by any means. In all my trials using pecan scions the only pecan which grafts well on it and survives indefinitely, is the Hope. This is also a very hardy tree but we cannot recommend it as a nut tree because we have never seen the parent tree bear any nuts. The parent tree is now twenty years old. Quite a large tree but no nuts. It is growing in an unfavorable location for bearing since it is shaded by much larger trees. It is growing right here in St. Paul.

The Bridgewater and the Beeman are two more hickories which are very hardy and which come into bearing quickly, also are successfully grafted on bitternut root. They do not mature their nuts so reliably nor so early by any means as the Weschcke. For a little further south they might be very reliable. They are fully as hardy and satisfactory in every other respect. The hickories that have proved to be fairly hardy but have produced very few nuts are the Cedarapids and the Kirtland. The Beaver hybrid hickory is probably next for nut production satisfaction, grafts well on bitternut root but does not seem to have a long life. The trees that I bought from your father nearly twenty years ago are now dead although they lived to become large fine trees and bore in some seasons very nice crops of nuts. The Fairbanks hickories, grafted some seventeen or eighteen years ago, are still surviving, but bear very few nuts, some seasons practically nothing at all. They very seldom ripen as they mature very much later than the natives or the other varieties mentioned above. I do not consider the Fairbanks a very edible nut anyway as they become very rancid after a couple of months. The Beaver is not a good keeper either. This is rather an important characteristic in a nut and one in which the Weschcke excels, as in ordinary office temperature it usually keeps two or three years. I believe that this is partly due to the thin shell. My theory is that the thin shell expands and contracts with heat and moisture conditions without cracking. This prevents air from getting at the kernel, and since it is the oxygen which is mostly responsible for rancidity, this exclusion of air probably accounts for the fresh state that these nuts maintain for a long time. I have noticed that thick-shelled shellbarks and, to a lesser degree the shagbarks, crack open, in minute hairline cracks, and these nuts which split like this invariably soon become rancid.

Now the black walnuts are next in order. For many years I considered the Ohio a worthless variety. They would seldom mature any of the nuts, and although they were regular bearers the thick hull was a nuisance. I have had twenty years' experience with this variety and they are the hardiest of all the old ones. They stand up very well and each year the nuts become a little more satisfactory. Evidently the trees have the ability to acclimatize themselves and they stand up better than Thomas, Stabler or Ten Eyck of the old varieties that I have tested.

More recent varieties which I have tested and have proved satisfactory, are the Paterson and the Rohwer; I recommend these two above all other black walnuts. I have two seedlings which I am watching with a great deal of interest. One is from Minnesota and the other is a failed grafted tree which sprang up from the root and so far is beginning to bear prolifically a medium sized nut with a rather thick shell which does not crack out very well but the quality is superb. It has a thin hull which you can pop off by merely pressing your thumb against it after it is thoroughly dry, coming off very clean leaving a good looking nut. The kernel is very light straw-colored and you can generally get them out in good pieces, about one-quarter of the whole kernel. Above all it matures very early, about the middle of September or sooner, and this is the deciding factor for any nut, because, no matter how well It cracks, how prolific it may be, or hardy, if you do not get a ripe nut you have nothing for here in the north. I feel quite certain that this is going to be the standard black walnut for the north. For want of a better name I have been calling it the "Ruffy" because the hull, when green, has a pimply surface and a rough appearance.

The other black walnut that I am watching is a seedling resulting from ten bushels planted nearly twenty years ago, the only tree to bear because of the crowded condition of all these walnuts planted so close together. I have been watching it for six or seven years and was never able to get a mature nut until this year. Reason was that in most of the seasons the nuts were empty; other times I did not wait until they were fully ripe, being too anxious to find out what was inside. This tree I have named the "Walbut" because it seemed to me it might be a cross between a butternut and a walnut. The kernel is very light colored. It cracks out the best of any walnut I have ever tested. It is difficult to graft, so far in my experience. I have no living grafts from it although I have tried again and again to graft it on other large isolated stocks in the orchard. It has a square shape, with deep indentations near the point. It is something to watch, and work with although it does not seem to be extra hardy in spite of the fact that it is a native tree. At present it is merely an interesting variety to experiment with and it may possibly be of some use later on. The branches have shown curious little birdseye markings—it has a habit of developing buds which die and form little brown structures in the wood and it is possible that the tree may be a fancy timber tree. The shell has only one structure down the center, thereby insuring that the halves come out whole.

An ornamental known as the lace-leaf walnut is very hardy here, doesn't winter kill at all but so far has not borne any nuts. The Deming Purple is not hardy; the Stabler is very unreliable considering the last few years; the Thomas is still one of the best except it suffers from winter injury occasionally; the Ten Eyck very seldom bears any nuts although we have several very large trees now. The Elmer Myers possibly has a chance; it is still living. The Snyder has survived the last few winters and in my opinion it is one of the best nuts I have ever seen. The grafts have borne a few nuts already in the second year of grafting. They set a couple of nuts even after a severe winter last year, but they fell off during the summer, much the same as the Thomas and many of the Ohio did. The same thing happened to practically all of my hybrid hazels, also the Winkler and even the wild hazel kept continually dropping the nuts until there was practically nothing left. No doubt this effect was produced by a peculiar season. We should not hold it against the nut trees since it was a universal condition.

Last summer about one-half dozen of the pecan trees which I had been playing around with for twenty years, started to blossom but only had staminate bloom, There might possibly be a crop of pecans this coming year—I do not have any hopes that any of these seedlings will be able to mature their nuts, but there is always a possibility and they are certainly hardy. None of them that I have tried to graft will live on bitternut roots.

Chestnuts are difficult to get started but once they are started they grow very well although there are only a few surviving out of many thousands of seeds planted. Every year one or more comes into bearing—they generally do not mature their nuts, and what I have tasted of them are not anything to brag about except that they are sweet; the size is insignificant and they evidently have much of the native chestnut blood. I am still testing such varieties as the Carr, Zimmerman, and Connecticut Yankee. So far these have shown themselves to be quite tender varieties. I do not consider the chestnut worthwhile because of the constant threat that if a grove should be started it might soon have the blight in it.

I have several Chinese chestnut seedlings which are making a fairly good growth and in time may become productive trees.

We have one hybrid white oak which has an edible kernel but out of about one hundred nuts you might get one wholesome one free from weevils. The tree is very old and is rapidly declining. The nut is small but the tree is quite prolific. I merely mention it to show that there are possibilities in developing the oak. I think our mutual friend, J. Russell Smith, would probably like to hear this as he advocates the use of oaks, and I agree with him that there are possibilities for human food to be used first-hand. I am all out of sympathy with second-hand food production as pork or beef or any meat products, as you know. One reason is that it is economically wrong as it takes many times more acreage to produce meat than vegetables for the same amount of food energy to be derived. My authority, the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which says it takes 64 pounds of dry fodder to produce 1 pound of dry beef, and 32 pounds of dry fodder to produce 1 pound of dry mutton, etc., etc.