Walnut Growing in Oregon | Page 2

to that of North American wheat at the present time.
[Illustration: More Nuts than Leaves. Tree of D. H. Turner.]
[Illustration: Garden Stuff, Melons Pumpkins, Prunes and Children growing among the Walnuts. The Walnuts will in a Few Years put out all but the Children]
The United States Year Book for 1908 estimates the food value of the walnut at nearly double that of wheat, and three times that of beefsteak.
Colonel Henry Dosch, the Oregon pioneer of walnut growing, says: "As a business proposition I know of no better in agricultural or horticultural pursuits."
Prof. C. I. Lewis, of the Oregon Experiment Station, writes: "In establishing walnut groves we are laying the foundation for prosperity for a great many generations."
Mr. H. M. Williamson, secretary of the Oregon Board of Horticulture, writes: "The man who plants a walnut grove in the right place and gives it proper care is making provision not only for his own future welfare, but for that of his children and his children's children."
Felix Gillett, the veteran horticulturist of Nevada City, California, wrote shortly before his death: "Oregon is singularly adapted to raising walnuts."
Thomas Prince, owner of the largest bearing walnut grove in Oregon, expresses the most enthusiastic satisfaction with the income from his investment, and is planting additional groves on his 800-acre farm in Yamhill county, in many cases uprooting fruit trees to do so.

HISTORY IN BRIEF
The so-called "English" walnut originated in Persia, where it throve for many centuries before it was carried to Europe--to England, Germany, France, Spain and Italy--different varieties adapting themselves to each country. The name "walnut" is of German origin, meaning "foreign nut." The Greeks called it "the Royal nut," and the Romans, "Jupiter's Acorn," and "Jove's Nut," the gods having been supposed to subsist on it.
The great age and size to which the walnut tree will attain has been demonstrated in these European countries: one tree in Norfolk, England, 100 years old, 90 feet high, and with a spread of 120 feet, yields 54,000 nuts a season; another tree, 300 years old, 55 feet high, and having a spread of 125 feet, yields 1,500 pounds each season. In Crimea there is a notable walnut tree 1,000 years old that yields in the neighborhood of 100,000 nuts annually. It is the property of five Tartar families, who subsist largely on its fruit.
In European countries walnuts come into bearing from the sixteenth to the twenty-fourth year; in Oregon, from the eighth to the tenth year; grafted trees, sixth year.
The first walnut trees were introduced into America a century ago by Spanish friars, who planted them in Southern California. It was not until comparatively recent years that the hardier varieties from France, adapted to commercial use, were planted in California and later in Oregon. They were also tried in other localities, but without success.
Since the prolific productiveness of the English walnut on the Pacific Coast has been assured, many commercial groves have been set out.

TEST TREES OF OREGON
The first walnut trees were planted in Oregon in limited number for purely home use, "just to see if they would grow," and they did. Thus the state can boast of single trees close to sixty years of age, each with admirable records of unfailing crops, demonstrating what a fortune would now be in the grasp of their owners had they planted commercially.
In Portland, Oregon, on what is known as the old Dekum place, 13th and Morrison streets, there are two walnut trees, planted in 1869, that have yielded a heavy crop every fall since their eighth year, not a single failure having been experienced. The ground has never been cultivated. The nuts planted were taken at random from a barrel in a grocery store. During the "silver thaw" of 1907, the most severe cold spell in the history of Oregon, one of the trees was wrenched in two, but the dismembered limb, hanging by a shred, bore a full crop of walnuts the following season.
N. A. King, at 175 Twenty-first street, has some fine, old trees that have not missed bearing a good crop since their eighth year.
Henry Hewitt, living at Mt. Zion, Portland, an elevation of 1,000 feet, has many handsome trees, one, a grafted tree fifteen years old, that has borne since its fifth year. Another tree of his buds out the fourth of July and yields a full crop as early as any of the other varieties.
In Salem, there is what is known as the famous old Shannon tree, fully thirty years old, with a record of a heavy crop every season.
Mayor Britt, of Jacksonville, has a magnificent tree that has not failed in twenty years.
Dr. Finck, of Dallas, has a large tree seventeen years old that bore 70 pounds of nuts in its thirteenth year, and has increased ever since.
C. H. Samson, of Grants Pass, has