Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting | Page 7

If we all followed this rule the supply would
never be exhausted. We know the demand will not be.
MR. HERSHEY: Couldn't we pass a law here, as they have in Germany,
that every man has to plant thirty trees before he can get married?
THE PRESIDENT: Have you found a first class butternut?
MR. SNYDER: None, except those that have been listed for a couple of
years. The Buckley is the best in the state. Sherwood is next. Those two
are the best.
THE PRESIDENT: In Michigan we are interested in getting a good
butternut.
MR. SNYDER: By the way, we have on the table a hybrid. This hybrid
is a cross between the sieboldiana and the American butternut. We call
it the Helmick hybrid. We have propagated it for our own use at home.
We have it under restrictions. I have six seedlings that I have produced
from seed of this Helmick hybrid that are crossed with the Stabler black
walnut. In these seedlings are wrapped up three distinct species, the
Stabler (Juglans nigra), Japanese heartnut (Juglans sieboldiana
cordiformis) and the American butternut (Juglans cinerea). I know this
is the result because when the Helmick hybrid bloomed its cluster
containing eighteen nutlets would have perished for want of pollen to
fertilize them because it had produced no staminate blossoms of its
own. There being nothing on the place with ripe catkins shedding
pollen, I was watching them very closely for fear there would nothing
else bloom in time to fertilize the nutlets, and the first thing to offer

ripe pollen that could be used was the Stabler walnut, from which I
gathered a handful of catkins and carried to the Helmick hybrid and
dusted pollen over the cluster of nutlets and succeeded in saving six out
of the cluster of eighteen. These matured into full grown nuts which
were saved and each of them grew into a nice young seedling. I know
beyond question that these seedlings represent the three distinct species
mentioned because there was nothing furnishing pollen with which to
fertilize them except the Stabler walnut.
THE PRESIDENT: The work that Mr. Snyder and Dr. Drake and Dr.
Deming are doing in locating good varieties of nuts is certainly very
valuable. If we had the whole country hunting for good nut trees we
could tell what the country is producing. We have a great many
valuable varieties throughout the United States and Canada.
Our next speaker is Professor T. J. Maney of the Iowa Agricultural
College at Ames. I am very much pleased that the experiment stations
in some of the states are actively interested in the propagating of nut
trees. New York, Iowa and Ohio are doing work along this line and no
doubt other experiment stations are interested. In quite a number of
them there is a great lack of interest, and perhaps I should say of
knowledge, about nut culture in general.
PROF. MANEY: During the past six or seven years, during our regular
annual short course, we have been having a week for a nut short course
and we have been very fortunate in having Mr. Harrington and Mr.
Snyder there. That work has already resulted in the establishment of a
nut project that will continue to grow during the coming year.
You recall that Mr. Neilson revived the subject of paraffin. I notice that
he always wound up with a plea that someone invent an apparatus to
apply the paraffin. What I have here is an answer to the plea. This
apparatus consists of a two and one-half inch pipe with a spray nozzle
attached. The idea is to put into the tube hot paraffin and apply pressure
here, and then with a plumber's blowtorch keep the paraffin heated. The
handle is covered with asbestos. I didn't spend much time in working
this up but I think it works fairly well. There is one difficulty in
perfecting your apparatus to apply hot paraffin, and that is the fact that

when it comes out it immediately congeals into a sort of snow. You just
can't atomize hot paraffin. The only way is through air pressure. I used
this on some dahlia roots quite successfully. This did the work very
well in that case and I think for applying it to rose roots and plants of
that kind it may work quite successfully. Another thing I thought might
be of interest to you is some work in grafting by the use of paraffin.
Last year I was interested in grafting some apples. On July 12th I made
some regular cleft grafts, using the green wood as the scion after
removing the leaves.
DR. SMITH: Wood of that year or previous?
PROF. MANEY: That year. The entire graft was covered with paraffin.
This picture was taken