Introduction

Chapter 1 First Encounters

Chapter 2 First Attempts

Chapter 3 Black Walnuts

Chapter 4 Hazels and Filberts

Chapter 5 Hazels and/or Filberts

Chapter 6 Pecans and Their Hybrids

Chapter 7 Hickory the King

Chapter 8 Butternut

Chapter 9 Pioneering With English Walnuts in Wisconsin

Chapter 10 Other Trees

Chapter 11 Pests and Pets

Chapter 12 Storing and Planting Seeds

Chapter 13 Tree Planting Methods

Chapter 14 Winter Protection of Grafts and Seedlings

Chapter 15 Tree Storage

Chapter 16 Suggestions on Grafting Methods

Chapter 17 Grafting Tape Versus Raffia

Chapter 18 Effects of Grafting on Unlike Stocks

Chapter 19 Distinguishing Characteristics of Scions

Chapter 20 Hybridizing

Chapter 21 Toxicity Among Trees and Plants

Conclusion

Chapter 1

FIRST ENCOUNTERS

Almost everyone can remember from his youth, trips made to gather nuts.  Those nuts may have been any of the various kinds distributed throughout the United States, such as the butternut, black walnut, beechnut, chestnut, hickory, hazel or pecan.  I know that I can recall very well, when I was a child and visited my grandparents in New Ulm and St. Peter, in southern Minnesota, the abundance of butternuts, black walnuts and hazels to be found along the roads and especially along the Minnesota and Cottonwood river bottoms.  Since such nut trees were not to be found near Springfield, where my parents lived, which was just a little too far west, I still associate my first and immature interest in this kind of horticulture with those youthful trips east.

The only way we children could distinguish between butternut and black walnut trees was by the fruit itself, either on the tree or shaken down.  This is not surprising, however, since these trees are closely related, both belonging to the family Juglans.  The black walnut is known as Juglans nigra and the butternut or white walnut as Juglans cinera.  The similarity between the trees is so pronounced that the most experienced horticulturist may confuse them if he has only the trees in foliage as his guide.  An experience I recently had is quite suggestive of this.  I wished to buy some furniture in either black walnut or mahogany and I was hesitating between them.  Noting my uncertainty, the salesman suggested a suite of French walnut.  My curiosity and interest were immediately aroused.  I had not only been raising many kinds of walnut trees, but I had also run through my own sawmill, logs of walnut and butternut.  I felt that I knew the various species of walnut very thoroughly.  So I suggested to him: