186 FACTS ABOUT CROP TREES
"We have found by actual test that the Thomas gives over ten pounds of meats to the bushel and with care ninety per cent, are unbroken quarters." °
The flavor of these nuts is of unusual excellence. The tree is a fast grower, somewhat subject to loss of leaves in late summer from fungus. I have had seven-foot trees of this variety produce nuts in the nursery row.
The Thomas, the Stabler, and the Ohio, which seems to be midway in qualities between the Stabler and the Thomas, were thought worthy of recommendation for general planting by the Northern Nut Growers' Association in 1926.° I have used them all in my own first planting of ten acres. I am one of many to start commercial plantings. Several thousand grafted trees have been planted in widely scattered locations east of the Mississippi River and a few west of it. Commercial data on the industry are likely to increase and become available in the next decade.
A crop of black walnuts to occupy winter hours of farm labor appears to be a very effective item in farm economy."®
8 Letter. E. A. Riehl. January 19, 1915.
® See their Bulletin No. 6, in which they gave to the public the following advice: "The Northern Nut Growers' Association has been studying the varieties, propagation, and growth of nut trees for seventeen years. It now recommends the planting in orchard form of the better varieties of grafted and budded native American black walnuts in those parts of the country where the tree grows naturally."
10"T have not changed my mind a particle about the black walnut in the last four or five years. I knew that as soon as a black walnut that could be cracked was discovered it would take the place it deserves and as 'faith without works is dead' I expect to set about fifteen acres of the 'Stabler' black walnut next fall. I want something for my farm labor to do in the winter time anyhow, and if I could have about a thousand bushels of these walnuts for them to amuse themselves by cracking on wintry days, thereby producing about ten thousand pounds of walnut meats, even selling them at ineuy-Eye cents per pound, you see, would return twenty-five hundred dollars.
"Mr. Riehl is getting eighty cents for walnut meats; it is certainly not out of reason to expect them to always bring at least twenty-five cents per pound." (Letter. Thomas P. Littlepage. Washington. D. C.. January 109, 1916.) Eleven years later, with his trees in bearing. Mr. Littlepage is as enthusiastic as ever. Mr. Littlepage, a corporation lawyer, was one of the founders of the Northern Nut Growers' Association in 1910.
