They are probably to
be considered as geographically distinct rather than as botanically
different species.
For several years I continued to graft black walnuts on butternut trees
with the intention of converting hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these
wild trees over to prolific, cultured black walnuts. I did not realize
my mistake in doing this until ten years had elapsed. I believed that
since the tops were growing, the trees would shortly produce nuts. Today
they are still growing, bigger and better, yet most of these grafted
trees bear no nuts, having only a crop of leaves. A few nuts result from
these grafts, however, and some of the trees bear a handful of nuts from
tops of such size that one would expect the crops to be measured in
bushels. The kind which bore the best was the Ohio variety. In another
chapter, I shall relate parallel experience in hickory grafting which I
carried on simultaneously with grafting of black walnut on butternut.
My first big disappointment in my black walnut orchard was when, in
about 1930, having a fairly good crop of nuts, I unsuccessfully
attempted to sell them to local stores. They were not interested in
anything except walnut kernels and to them, a wild walnut kernel was the
same as a cultivated one as long as it was highly-flavored.
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