and Kentish cob seem to be the only two filberts that are
tender with me. Du Chilly and Italian red live and crop regularly. I
have several very large new varieties of seedling filberts. I like to
grow seedling filberts, they show wonderful variations in fruiting. The
same with heartnuts. I never lose a seedling heartnut for if the tree
yields an unsatisfactory nut I promptly bud it to a Stranger which is
the most regular and heaviest cropping heartnut I know of. Yes, every
year a monster crop of nuts whose meats come out whole.

Our hybrid Jap heartnut x native butternut crosses are of three types
and all excellent and will hold their own with any nut that grows. No
nut can beat our butternut for eating. But the shells are too thick, the
trees crop only about every 4 years, are unhealthy and shed their leaves
soon after September 1st. On the other hand, the hybrid outlooks it,
outcrops it and outlives it and our friendly neighbor Russia is very
greatly intrigued with these new nuts developed here at Echo Valley.
They are thin-shelled, very easy to crack, meats come out easily, trees
have a tropical look, crop early, grow fast and very large, leaves hang
on green almost to November and the crop ripens early, just after the
filberts which are the first nuts to ripen with me, while the Winkler
hazels are the last, though the hybrid filbert-hazels are almost as
late.

A very beautiful sight here are the many different nut trees growing on
black walnut stock to be seen all over the 20 acres. They are heartnuts,
Jap walnuts, hybrids, English walnuts and butternuts, as well as
superior named black walnuts.

People don't want beautiful trees nearly as much as they do trees that
grow nuts. For instance, they don't buy pecans from me, because though
they are quite hardy and beautiful, yet the northern pecans don't mature
their crop sufficiently in our short season. Down in extreme
southwestern Ontario the pecan has cropped and ripened.

One mistake we must not make is not to be too sure of the value of a nut
because it is large, thin-shelled and has a fine flavor but is a poor
cropper. The nut that produces a very heavy crop is the valuable nut.
Thus McAllister hican and the Stabler black are worthless because of
their extremely thin crop.

Another nut that looks large and excellent on the tree is the Ohio black
walnut, whose huge dirty hull and small nut condemns it. I like
thin-hulled nuts that come out clean.

Am