English Walnuts

Part 1

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ENGLISH WALNUTS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PLANTING, CULTIVATING AND HARVESTING THIS MOST DELICIOUS OF NUTS

(Compiled by WALTER FOX ALLEN)

(Copyright 1912)

Foreword.

Realizing the tremendous interest that is now being directed by owners of country estates everywhere to the culture of the Persian or English Walnut, I have compiled this little book with the idea of supplying the instruction needed on the planting, cultivation and harvesting of this most delicious of all nuts.

I have gathered the material herein presented from a large number of trustworthy sources, using only such portions of each as would seem to be of prime importance to the intending grower.

I am indebted to the United States Department of Agriculture and to numerous cultivators of the nut in all sections of the country.

I have aimed at accuracy and brevity--and hope the following pages will furnish just that practical information which I have felt has long been desired.

THE COMPILER.

English Walnuts.

Viewed as a comparatively new industry, the culture of the Persian or English Walnut is making remarkable strides in this country. Owners of farms and suburban estates everywhere are becoming interested in the raising of this delicious article of food, thousands of trees being set out every year.

There are two important reasons for the rapidly growing enthusiasm that is being manifested toward the English Walnut: First, its exceptional value as a food property is becoming widely recognized, one pound of walnut meat being equal in nutriment to eight pounds of steak. Secondly, its superior worth as an ornamental shade tree is admitted by everyone who knows the first thing about trees. For this purpose there is nothing more beautiful. With their wide-spreading branches and dark-green foliage, they are a delight to the eye. Unlike the leaves of some of our shade trees, those of this variety do not drop during the Summer but adhere until late in the Fall, thus making an unusually clean tree for lawn or garden. In addition to all this, the walnut is particularly free from scale and other pests.

Up to the present time, the English Walnut has been more largely in demand as a shade tree than as a commercial proposition; in fact, so little attention has been given to the nuts themselves that there are, comparatively speaking, few large producing orchards in the United States, the greater portion of the total yield of walnuts being procured from scattered field and roadside trees. It is a little difficult to understand why they should have been so neglected when there are records of single trees bearing as much as 800 pounds of nuts in one year.

In 1895 this country produced about 4,000,000 pounds, and more than 16,000,000 pounds of English Walnuts in 1907, with a proportionate annual increase each year to the present. But, when it is known that the United States is consuming yearly about 50,000,000 pounds of nuts, with the demand constantly increasing, thereby necessitating the importation annually of something more than 25,000,000 pounds, the wonderful possibilities of the industry in this country, from a purely business view point, will readily be appreciated. And of course the market price of the walnut is keeping step with the consumption, having advanced from 15 to 20 cents a pound in the past few years.

In California the nut industry is becoming a formidable rival of the orange; in fact, there are more dollars worth of nuts (all varieties) shipped from the state now per year than oranges. One grower is shipping $136,000 worth of English Walnuts a year while another man, with an orchard just beginning to bear, is getting about $200 an acre for his crop.

No standard estimate can at present be placed on the yield per acre of orchards in full bearing, but the growers are confident that they will soon be deriving from $800 to $1600 per acre, this figure being based on the number of individual trees which are already producing from $90 to $120 a year. The success with the nut in California can be duplicated in the East providing certain hardy varieties are planted; and in the few instances where orchards have been started in the East, great things have already been done and still greater are expected in the next few years.

But where did this walnut originate? What is its history? Juglans Regia (nut of the gods) Persian Walnut, called also Madeira Nut and English Walnut, is a native of Western, Central and probably Eastern Asia, the home of the peach and the apricot. It was known to the Greeks, who introduced it from Persia into Europe at an early day, as "Persicon" or "Persian" nut and "Basilicon" or "Royal" nut. Carried from Greece to Rome, it became "Juglans" (name derived from Jovis and glans, an acorn; literally "Jupiter's Acorn", or "the Nut of the Gods"). From Rome it was distributed throughout Continental Europe, and according to Loudon, it reached England prior to 1562. In England it is generally known as the walnut, a term of Anglo-Saxon derivation signifying "foreign nut". It has been called Madeira Nut, presumably because the fruit was formerly imported into England from the Madeira Islands, where it is yet grown to some extent. In America it has commonly been known as English Walnut to distinguish it from our native species. From the fact that of all the names applied to this nut "Persian" seems to have been the first in common use, and that it indicates approximately the home of the species, the name "Persian Walnut" is regarded as most suitable, but inasmuch as "English Walnut" is better known here, we shall use that name in this treatise.

As a material for the manufacture of gunstocks and furniture the timber of the nut was long in great demand throughout Europe and high prices were paid for it. Early in the last century as much as $3,000 was paid for a single large tree for the making of gunstocks.

Everything depends upon the planting and cultivation of English Walnuts as indeed it does of all other fruits from which the very best results are desired. The following general rules should be thoroughly mastered.

PLANT ENGLISH WALNUT TREES:

On any well-drained land where the sub-soil moisture is not more than ten or twelve feet from the surface.

Wherever Oaks, Black Walnuts or other tap-root nut trees will grow.

Forty to sixty feet apart.

Part 2

In holes eighteen inches in diameter and thirty inches deep.

Two inches deeper than the earth mark showing on the tree.

AND REMEMBER:

That the trees need plenty of good, rich soil about their roots.

That the trees should be inclined slightly toward prevailing winds.

That the trees should not be cut back.

That the ground cannot be packed too hard around the roots and the tree.

That the trees should be mulched in the Fall.

That the ground should be kept cultivated around the trees during the Spring and Summer.

That English Walnut trees should be transplanted while young, as they will often double in size the year the tap-root reaches the sub-soil moisture (that is, the moist earth).

That tap-root trees are the easiest of all to transplant if the work is done while the trees are young and small.

That trees sometimes bear the third year after transplanting three-year-old trees where the sub-soil moisture is within six or eight feet of the surface.

That the age of bearing depends largely on the distance the tap-root has to grow to reach the sub-soil moisture.

The growth of the English Walnut is different from that of most fruit trees. The small trees grow about six inches the first year, tap-root the same; the second year they grow about twelve inches, tap-root the same; the third year they grow about eighteen inches, tap-root nearly as much. For the first three years the tap-root seems to gain most of the nourishment, and at the end of the third year, or about that time, the tree itself starts its real growth. After the tap-root reaches the sub-soil moisture, the tree often grows as much in one year as it has in the preceding three or four. If the trees are transplanted previous to the time that the tap-root reaches this moisture and before the tree starts its rapid growth, very few young trees are lost in the process of transplanting.

For orchard planting the trees should be placed from forty to sixty feet apart and by staggering the rows a greater distance is gained between individual trees. Any other small fruits may be planted in the orchard between the walnut trees or any cultivated crop can be raised satisfactorily on the same land, many orchardists gaining triple use of the soil in this way. Besides, the cultivation of the earth in proximity to the walnuts proves of great benefit to the trees. Before trees are planted the tap-root should be trimmed or cut back and most if not all the lateral branches trimmed from the tree. The tree itself should not be cut back as is customary with either fruit trees, but by leaving the terminal bud intact, a much better shaped tree is developed. It is not necessary to prune English Walnut trees except in cases where some of the lower branches interfere with cultivation.

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