tions of the
southern hardwood belt. It was valued quite highly for the nuts. It has
been killed out by the chestnut blight and it is very rarely that live
suckers are seen.

The beech was widely distributed in the woodland of southern Ontario. It
has rarely been planted as a shade tree and it is not seeding up
extensively in woodlots. There are many stories of hogs being fattened
on beechnuts in pioneer days.

The Japanese heartnut has been planted in various parts of the province.
A heartnut tree in Bruce County lived through a hard winter that killed
many sugar maples and beech in the same area. Nut trees are seeding up
in many pastured woodlots in southwestern Ontario. The reason for this
is that stock do not relish their foliage as they do the maple, beech
and basswood, etc., and because of this, it is likely that nut trees
will make up a larger percentage of trees in Ontario woodlots than
originally, as it is a sad fact that at least seventy-five percent on
the farm woodlots in Ontario are still being pastured.

It is hoped that more interest will be shown in planting nut trees by
farmers and home owners. The Department of Lands and Forests is
enlarging its staff of Extension Foresters, and no doubt they will
include the propagation of nut trees in their extension work.

Nut Growing at the Horticultural Experiment Station, Vineland Station,
Ontario

W. J. STRONG

There was very little interest in nut growing in the early days of the
Horticultural Experiment Station although back in 1914 a few filberts
and Persian (English) walnuts were planted.

The first nut orchard at the Station was set out in 1922 and since then
several lots of nut trees have been added from time to time, principally
filberts and Persian walnuts. Also a few black walnuts, Japanese
heartnuts, Chinese chestnuts, hickories, pecan and several hybrids were
planted.

In 1922 twenty varieties of filberts were obtained from a nursery near
Rochester, N. Y. These were reputed to be some of the better sorts
imported from Germany but when they came into bearing only one was true
to name, this being Italian Red. Another un-named variety in this lot
(field number 3 R 1 A T 10, 11, 12), proved to be hardy and very
vigorous. The nuts were only of medium size but very well filled and of
good quality. The rest of these were a nondescript lot of worthless
varieties or seedlings and so after a few years nearly all were uprooted
and discarded.