I wrote to my friend in St. Peter, Mr. E. E.
Miller, and he told me where I could obtain walnuts by the bushel. Soon
I was making trips to the countryside around St. Peter buying walnuts
from the farmers there. I planted about five bushels of these at the
River Falls farm and the rest, another two bushels, at St. Paul. Soon I
had several thousand young walnut trees which all proved hardy to the
winters.
When pruning the black walnut trees purchased from Mr. Jones for
transplanting, I saved the tops and grafted them to the young trees with
a fair degree of success. In a few years, I was using my own trees to
fill up spaces left vacant by the mortality of the Pennsylvania-grown
trees. I did not neglect seeding to provide stocks of the Eastern black
walnut also, which is almost a different species from the local black
walnut, but these seedling trees proved to be tender toward our winters
and only a few survived. After they had grown into large trees, these
few were grafted to English walnuts. The difference between the Eastern
black walnut and the local native black walnut is quite apparent when
the two trees are examined side by side. Even the type of fruit is
different, although I do not know of any botanical authority who will
confirm my theory that they are different species.
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