Hicans and northern pecans do not develop north of Lake Ontario. Down in the very southwest corner of Ontario, north of Lake Erie, some small pecans have cropped well on trees. As a curiosity pecan trees are quite hardy here, but we lack length of season to mature the nuts properly. No Weiker hickory hybrid crops and ripens well here. This nut is one of the very few crosses between shellbark and shagbark hickories, (=Carya laciniosa=) western and (=Carya ovata=) eastern, hickories.
I have some crosses between the Chinese and Japanese chestnuts that I am watching. I have one European x American cross chestnut, the Gibbons, and one native (=Castanea dentata=) that have escaped the blight. So far this year I have found only one blighted chestnut limb and I promptly cut it off and tarred the cut well.
At least I have persimmons hardy enough to stand the winters north of Lake Ontario, but I am not sure about the pawpaw. This fruit seems to require shade from the winter's sun.
Many but not all of the Crath importations of Persian walnuts from the Carpathians are hardy and much more so than the Pomeroy varieties. Even the Broadview is not hardy as many of the Crath varieties. Rev. Crath did an immense service to us by his importations which far exceeded our highest expectations. I have here nearly half a hundred varieties of =Juglans regia= that are doing well, especially the three Rumanian giants that ripen so well here.
List of Some of the Larger and More Important Trees at Echo Valley, Islington, Ontario
=Black Walnut= Stambaugh 1926--1st prize. Thomas from J. F. Jones, late ripener. Troup, cracks out whole in spring. Hepler, from Miss Riehl, a long nut. Elmer Myers, excellent flavor, the thinest shell. Snyder, medium size, large kernel. Tasterite, a small nut, origin New York State. Clark, origin Iowa, very large nut. Gifford, bears very heavy crop every second year, ripens before Thomas.
=Persian (English) Walnut= David Fairchild, seedling Rumanian giant. Senator Pepper, seedling Rumanian giant. Paul de Kruif, seedling Rumanian giant. Chinese, very hardy, medium size. Broadview, from British Columbia but originally from Russia.
=Hickory= Neilson, a true shagbark, nut large flat and very thin shell, flavor is wonderful. A big tree on highway 24 not far south of where Alexander Graham Bell perfected the telephone. Hagen, a true shagbark, a fast grower. Hand, a shagbark. Weiker, a shellbark and shagbark cross, a large, heavy bearing nut that ripens here north of Lake Ontario. Excellent flavor, grafted on pecan. Papple, a small good shagbark, cracks out whole. Anthony No. 1 shagbark. Glover, from Miss Riehl.