I often have found it difficult to procure fresh ones, ones that were
not slightly rancid. Because I liked eating these nuts, I thought I
would try to grow some for my own consumption and so avoid having to
depend on a grocer's occasional supply of those shipped in, always a
little stale. Raising nuts appealed to me economically too, since
obviously trees would need little care, and after they had begun to bear
would supply nuts that could be sold at interesting prices.

I turned the back yard of my home in St. Paul into an experimental plot.
Here I set out some of each kind of tree I planted or grafted at my farm
in Wisconsin. I had purchased a farm 35 miles east of St. Paul, beyond
the influence of the St. Croix River Valley. My experiments really began
there. The farm was covered with butternut trees, hazel bushes, and a
wild hickory called "bitternut." This last is well-named for I have
never found an animal other than a squirrel that could endure its nuts.
Possibly the white-footed mouse or deer-mouse could--I don't know. He
usually eats anything a squirrel does. I learned to appreciate these
bitternut trees later and they became a source of experience and
interest to me as I learned to graft on them many varieties, species and
hybrids of hickory. They served as a root-system and shortened the
length of time required to test dozens of hickory types, helping me in
that way, to learn within one lifetime what types of nuts are practical
for growing in the north.

Remembering the nut trees in southern Minnesota, I first thought to
procure black walnut and hickory trees from some farmer in that
district. Through acquaintances in St. Peter, I did locate some black
walnut trees only to find that it was impractical to dig and transport
trees of the size I wanted. A nursery near St. Paul supplied me with
some and I bought twenty-eight large, seedling black walnut trees. I was