Read Ebook: Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting Washington D. C. September 8 and 9 1916. by Northern Nut Growers Association Editor

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 671 lines and 56155 words, and 14 pages

ARTICLE I

ARTICLE II

ARTICLE IV

ARTICLE V

ARTICLE VI

BY-LAWS

ARTICLE I

ARTICLE II

ARTICLE IV

Northern Nut Growers Association

SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING

SEPTEMBER 8 AND 9, 1916

WASHINGTON, D. C.

The seventh annual meeting of the Northern Nut Growers Association was called to order in rooms 42-43 of the new building of the National Museum at Washington, D. C., on Friday, September 8th, at 10 a. m., the president, Dr. J. Russell Smith, presiding.

THE PRESIDENT: It is often customary to start meetings of this sort with a considerable amount of eloquence, such as an address of welcome by some high city or state official, a response to the address of welcome by some one else high in authority, and so on, during which the visitors are told of the many privileges they may enjoy, "the keys of the town" are handed over to them, and a good deal of high-flown oratory is indulged in. We suppose that the people in attendance at this meeting are so well acquainted with Washington that those preliminaries are unnecessary, and I have been informed by the members of the local committee that we can dispense with the frills in this case and proceed with the business of the meeting, which we think is going to rather crowd our time if we get said all that we want to say. We are going to devote this morning's programme first to a paper by Dr. Robert T. Morris on the chinquapin, and then to the discussion of a comparatively newly considered member of our nut family, namely, the American black walnut. We have been heretofore much interested in sundry exotics and talking far too little about this great tree nearer home.

Before taking up the technical programme we have a few matters of business to put through. First, we will have the report of the secretary and treasurer.

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY-TREASURER

Receipts from all sources, except sale of reports, have fallen off markedly, as have new members, 31 less than last year, though we have now 154 paid up members, one more than last year. 10 members have resigned and 42 have been dropped for non-payment of dues. We have lost one member by death, Herbert R. Orr, of Washington.

The committees on membership and on finance should be more active.

Our annual report constitutes the minutes of the last meeting. Our nut contest and other matters of interest have been reported through the columns of the American Nut Journal, our official organ.

THE PRESIDENT: Next in order of business is the first step toward the election of officers for the ensuing year. It is our custom to have a nominating committee elected at an early session. They deliberate and bring forward a slate which is voted on at a later session. This morning is a suitable time for the election of a committee, and tomorrow morning will be a suitable time for their report. Are there any nominations for the Nominating Committee?

MR. M. P. REED: Mr. President, I move that Dr. Morris, Mr. C. P. Close, Mr. C. A. Reed, Prof. Stabler and Dr. Ira Ulman be appointed as the Nominating Committee.

THE PRESIDENT: Are there any other nominations?

MR. C. A. REED: Mr. President, I would like to ask that Mr. Littlepage's name replace my name on that committee.

THE PRESIDENT: Will the nominating member accept that amendment?

MR. M. P. REED: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Are there any other nominations? Do I hear a second to the nominations?

A MEMBER: Second it.

THE PRESIDENT: Are there any other committees to report at this time?

THE SECRETARY: There is a Committee on Incorporation.

MR. T. P. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, the Committee on Incorporation has done some investigating as to the desirability of incorporating the Association, and also, if desirable, under what laws, but that committee has not yet made any final report nor come to any final conclusion, and I would suggest, as a member of the committee, that the committee be continued and instructed to report the following year.

THE PRESIDENT: I think that it is unnecessary to vote on the continuance of the committee, as it was appointed with indefinite tenure. We will proceed with the programme and first have the pleasure of listening to Dr. Morris.

NOTES ON THE CHINQUAPINS.

DR. ROBERT T. MORRIS, NEW YORK

According to Sargent the chinquapin occupies dry sandy ridges, rich hillsides and the borders of swamps from southern Pennsylvania to northern Florida and the valley of the Neches River in Texas. He states that this chestnut is usually shrubby in the region east of the Alleghany Mountains, and assuming the tree form west of the Mississippi River. Most abundant and of largest size in southern Arkansas and eastern Texas.

Curiously enough there are chinquapins also in northeastern Asia which occur as understudies of the larger chestnuts, very much as they do in America.

The indigenous range of the chinquapin in America is limited northward by a plan of nature for checking distribution of the species. This plan is manifested in a habit which the nuts have of sprouting immediately upon falling in the early autumn. They proceed busily to make a tap root which may become several inches in length before frost calls a halt. In the north where the warm season is not long enough to allow the autumn sprout to lignify sufficiently for bearing the rigors of winter it is killed. If we protect the small autumn plants, or if we transplant older seedlings from their natural habitat, they may be grown easily far north of their indigenous range. Thrifty chinquapins are happy in the Arnold Arboretum at Jamaica Plain in Massachusetts, and no one knows but they might be cultivated in Nova Scotia and Minnesota.

The American chinquapin is one of the many beautiful and valuable plants which have not as yet been taken up by horticulturists for extensive development. It promises to become one of our important sources of food supply for tomorrow. If we were to develop all of our plant resources at once it would be an unkindness to the horticulturists of two thousand years from now, who would be left moping around with nothing to do. Chinquapin nuts borne in heavy profusion by the plants are delicious in quality, but usually too small to attract customers aside from the wood folk. The wood of the chinquapin of tree form is valuable for purposes to which wood of the common American chestnut is put, and some of the tree chinquapins acquire an earned increment of two or three feet diameter of trunk, and a height of more than fifty feet. The bush chinquapin on the other hand feels rather exclusive when attaining a height of as much as fifteen feet.

I present for inspection a freshly cut branch from an ordinary bush chinquapin, loaded with burs, indicating the prolific nature of the variety. The nuts in this particular specimen are small. The next branch exhibited is from a similar bush, but with nuts quite as large as those of the average common chestnut. The horticulturist has only to graft or bud his ordinary run of chinquapin stocks from some one bush which bears large nuts, and he will then have a valuable graded market product. The larger the nut the less prolific the plant is a rule which holds good with the fruiting of almost any plant.

Look at this branch from a tree chinquapin. It is not remarkable in any way, but the leaves seem to be a little larger than those of the bush chinquapin. My tree chinquapins came from Stark's nursery in Missouri. The first two which came into bearing had nuts quite as large as those of the common chestnut and I imagined that a discovery of value had been made, but other trees of this variety later bore very small nuts, and all of the tree chinquapin nuts, large and small, were much duller in color than those of the bush chinquapin. My final conclusion is that so far as nuts alone are concerned we may plant and cultivate either the tree variety or the bush variety of the species and then bud or graft any number of stocks from some one plant which bears the best product.

DR. AUGUSTUS STABLER: Is it a somewhat finer grained wood than the ordinary chestnut?

DR. MORRIS: I think it is. All the chestnuts have rather coarse wood. It is strong, hard, durable, and valuable. This chinquapin wood is somewhat coarse grained, but, for comparison with the American chestnut, I don't know. I imagine it is finer grained.

DR. AUGUSTUS STABLER: I know that the chinquapin wood is very much tougher than the American chestnut.

DR. MORRIS: Oh, yes. You cannot break the branches so easily.

Here is a branch from a hybrid between a chinquapin and a common American chestnut . The leaves and bark, you will observe, are very much like those of the larger parent. The burs are borne singly or in small groups like those of the common chestnut, instead of being crowded in dense clusters like chinquapin burs. There are two or three nuts to the bur, while the chinquapin has normally, but one nut to the bur. This particular hybrid tree showed an interesting peculiarity. During the first two seasons of bearing it had but one nut to the bur, and this was of chinquapin character. In the third year its nuts were still borne singly, but they were lighter in color than before and oddly corrugated at the base. As the tree became older its chestnut parentage influence pre-dominated, and the tree began to bear two or three nuts to the bur, and more like chestnuts in character, becoming smooth again at the base.

I have a number of hybrids between chinquapins and various species and varieties of other chestnuts, but none of these as yet has produced nuts of marked value. There seems to be a tendency for the coarseness of the larger nuts to prevail in the hybrids, a certain loss of gentility beneath a showy exterior.

The next branch which I present for inspection is from a most beautiful member of the chestnut family, the alder-leaved chestnut . It is classed among the chinquapins in Georgia where the plant is nearly if not quite evergreen. At Stamford it is deciduous very late in the autumn, but sometimes a green leaf will be found in February, where snow or dead leaves on the ground have furnished a protecting covering. The notable value of this species is perhaps in its decorative character for lawns, although the nuts are first rate. The dark green brilliant leaves are striking in appearance, and the shrub is inclined toward a trailing habit, much like that of some of the junipers. This species is one of my pets at Merribrooke, and a perennial source of wonder that nurserymen have not as yet pounced upon it for purposes of exaggeration and misstatement in their annual catalogues.

All of these specimens shown today are from my country place at Stamford, Connecticut, where the mercury in the thermometer leads one to make quotations relating to the Eve of Saint Agnes; five or ten degrees below the zero of Fahrenheit occasionally, and once down to twenty degrees below without injury to any kind of chestnut so far as I could observe.

Our common chinquapin of the east is perhaps the one that will be cultivated most profitably in the region between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic coast. The beauty of freshly picked bush chinquapin nuts is not rivalled by that of any other kind of nut that I have ever seen. The exquisitely polished mahogany color comes out of a light downy cloud near the apex of the nut, dark as midnight for a moment and then shading through glows of lively chestnut until it dawns in a dreamy cream color at the base, with just enough suggestion of green to temper the reds.

If any gourmet with a color soul could serve each one of his friends to a plate of twenty freshly picked bush chinquapins along with two Bennett persimmons, and all resting upon late September leaves of tupelo or of sweet gum the friends would remain and live at his expense while the combination lasted.

Furthermore, the children must always be taken into consideration along with chinquapin questions. According to authorities on the subject of decadence, we do not care very much about the children in these days. If some old-fashioned folks still remain, and if these old-fashioned folks do not take any particular personal interest in the beautiful garden and lawn trees that America has held out towards us in the chinquapins, they may at least plant a few of them because of the social standing that will follow. How so? Well, you see, it's because the parents of elite children will run over for a little visit in order to find out why the children do not come home. Then again, we are kind to dumb animals when raising chinquapins. Squirrels and white-footed mice, crows and blue jays are full of enthusiasm for the nuts, and they will assume the responsibility of gathering the crop if the matter is left in their charge.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet