This is a companion list to the Spring 2019 Pomona Article titled Exploring North America’s Oldest Food Forest by Max Paschall
American Persimmon
Diospyros virginiana
The first of the “American Triplets” popularized by J. Russell Smith and John Hershey – the American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) – is an astoundingly delicious fruit. The trees at the Hershey nursery produce an abundance of fruit every Fall that is quickly eaten by deer, rodents, birds, and yellow jackets. Indeed, Hershey particularly touted the persimmon as an animal feed, noting that they’ll produce 5 tons of valuable livestock feed per acre on land that would be difficult to grow corn on.
“Fall of ‘65 with no rain – grass growth at a “stall”, 60 young [persimmon] trees fed our 25 herd 2 months, grew and fattened; 15 sheep 4 weeks, from late September till last week of November, then started to look for hay. Think of it. With little loss of hay and pasture crop in the orchard this tremendous crop of persimmons, 35% sugar, 10% protein plus many other feed elements; plus the potent oil and protein in seed it really excites you. Can you afford to slug along without them?”
— JOHN HERSHEY, NUT TREE NURSERIES CATALOG FOR 1966
Oak
Quercus alba, Q. macrocarpa, Q. muehlenbergii, Q. cerris, etc.
Species of Lepidoptera (moths & butterflies) supported: 534
Hershey grew and tested white oaks extensively, noting their longstanding use as a staple crop for people and ease of propagation. He particularly took interest in the ancient sentinels growing in his local landscape, and grew many seeds from the “William Penn Oaks” – specimens throughout Southeast Pennsylvania that were mature trees in the 1680’s. These trees often proved to be superior stock. His work with the TVA additionally turned up white oaks with acorns “practically free of tannin bitterness, sweet as Japanese chestnuts.”
“Here’s the center piece – the keystone of the American Triplets. This back bone of American frontier life and today’s wood industry, would make more for man in annual crops than our coal mines, if we would put our minds to work on it. Here’s why. These are the “corn fields of the future.” When man grows up to use what he has, he’ll Oak a mountain ridge, a hill-side, a rocky knoll. According to production figures of bearing oaks a low of 274 bushels of corn per acre in hog food value can be grown on mountains and steep slopes.”
— JOHN HERSHEY
For animal feed, he particularly liked the giant acorns produced by bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa), noting that it grafts well onto white oak, and produces acorns three years after grafting. Like the other white oaks he grew, these bur oak selections had low tannin acorns and grew quickly. Two of the largest at the site are planted at the Downingtown Quaker meeting house. Having seen how the bur oaks here produce huge acorns in the thousands, and how the local wildlife relishes them, it is easy to imagine that they would be perfect for silvopasture systems and food plots for hunters.
Honey Locust
Gleditsia triacanthos var. inermis
Species of Lepidoptera (moths & butterflies) supported: 46
The final member of the “American Triplets,” superior selections of honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos) were among the most significant contributions that Hershey ever made – and their potential still has yet to be realized. Hershey discovered varieties (“Millwood,” “Calhoun,” “Hershey,” and “Schofer”) of this native nitrogen-fixer that are thornless and produce 1.5+ ft. pods that are up to 40% sugar – an incredible and still untapped source of sweetener and calories. He found that the trees reliably produce hundreds of bushels of oat-quality feed per acre for livestock in fall and winter.
In one Downingtown back yard, there are a number of these superior honey locust trees growing. The owners mow regularly beneath the trees, essentially creating a honey locust savannah that approximates the megafauna-dependent habitat they’ve evolved for, as well as what they would look like in a modern silvopastural system for livestock feed.
Chestnut
Castanea mollissima
Species of Lepidoptera (moths & butterflies) supported: up to 127
Hershey started growing Japanese chestnuts, but by the late 1940’s was convinced that Chinese chestnuts were superior for our region. Throughout the literature he repeatedly recommended growing seedlings, as they come fairly true from seed and grafted trees can be risky. He offered seedlings from two varieties he named – a timber-type Chinese chestnut that he dubbed “Sky Climber” and recommended for timber plantings, as well as a variety called “Abundance” whose seedlings he said were often better than the grafted parent. Furthermore, he recommended planting black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) at 6×6 ft. spacing in between chestnuts and walnuts, in order to fix nitrogen and push the growth of the nut trees.
Walnut
Juglans nigra, J. cinerea, J. regia
Species of Lepidoptera (moths & butterflies) supported: 130
Hershey grafted and sold a number of black walnut (Juglans nigra) cultivars. He noted that seedlings of the “Thomas” variety make the best rootstock for walnuts, except in the far north. For customers in cold areas, he used Minnesota black walnuts for understock, and seedlings of a nut from Utah that survives and bears nuts in areas under 12-16 inches of rainfall for drier areas in the West. He also grafted and sold selections of English Walnut (Juglans regia) – the kind we most often find in stores – grafted on Black Walnut rootstock.
Pecan, Hickory, and Hican
Carya illinoinensis, C. ovata, C. cordiformis, Carya hybrids
Species of Lepidoptera (moths & butterflies) supported: 235
Hershey introduced the “Grainger” cultivar of shagbark hickory (Carya ovata), now the standard against which all other cultivars are measured for the species. Additionally, he planted an extensive collection of cold hardy pecans (Carya illinoinensis, cultivars “Busseron,” “Greenriver,” and “Indiana”) that still produce an incredible quantity of high-quality nuts.
One of the most incredible sights for those who visit the Hershey nursery is the size of Hican (pecan x hickory hybrids) nuts. Some of these, presumably the “McAllister” or “Bixby” variety, are the largest nuts produced on this continent. Many of these hican trees are likely the oldest of their kind in existence.
Other varieties of hicans can be found throughout the site as well, including “Burton” whose seedlings are particularly known to produce high-quality nuts.
Crabapple
Malus sp.
Species of Lepidoptera (moths & butterflies) supported: 311
At a few locations we have found an exceptional crabapple that holds its fruit late into the winter. It has a sweet-tart taste that is excellent for cider, baking and cooking, and even fresh eating for those who like somewhat tart apples. Most impressively, it produces a huge crop annually – avoiding the curse of biennial bearing that is common to most apples. Even in years when disease and pest pressure is heavy in apples throughout the region, these crabapples are unbothered and produce excellent blemish-free fruit without any sprays or maintenance. I have not yet found another cultivar with this quality of fruit that performs so well without sprays here. It’s exact cultivar is still unknown – we first thought it was “Callaway” based on visual assessment, but after consulting Hersheys catalogs we now believe it is either “Hopa” or “Manchurian.”
In addition to the trees profiled here, Hershey also offered hybrid poplars, redbud, silver bell, blueberries, mulberries, highbush cranberry viburnum, coral berry, mountain ash, Washington hawthorn, blackberries, sugar maple, and other tree crops with great potential. While exploring the nursery, we have also come across some oddities that we have yet to find an answer for – such as grafted beech trees, and large pecans that were grafted twice, creating an interstem about 20 feet high.
While it is a miracle that so many trees have survived five decades of development and urbanization, they are still under immediate threat. There are members of the city government in Downingtown who now realize how special this collection of trees is, but more organizing and education for the public is needed to make sure the remaining trees are looked after and not removed so easily. In the meantime, our group ventures out every year to collect seeds and cuttings, and to record and discover what still remains. The dream of Hershey and Smith is experiencing a rebirth with the renewed global interest in permaculture and agroforestry. We hope that this site can be a model and source of inspiration for future generations, and help guide the way toward an ecologically regenerative agriculture in our bioregion.
The research in this article has been painstakingly compiled by a number of people who have generously volunteered their time toward this project. Dale Hendricks of Green Light Plants, Buzz Ferver of Perfect Circle Farm, Zach Elfers of Nomad Seed Project, Adam Dusen of Hundred Fruit Farm, Taylor Malone, and – most importantly – Pete Chrisbacher, who knew about this site before any of us, and spent years gathering, scanning, and generously sharing many of Hershey’s catalogs and publications with us. For the intrepid fruit nuts out there, these documents can be publicly accessed here.
