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+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|DISCLAIMER                                                              |
|                                                                        |
|The articles published in the Annual Reports of the Northern Nut Growers|
|Association are the findings and thoughts solely of the authors and are |
|not to be construed as an endorsement by the Northern Nut Growers       |
|Association, its board of directors, or its members. No endorsement is  |
|intended for products mentioned, nor is criticism meant for products not|
|mentioned. The laws and recommendations for pesticide application may   |
|have changed since the articles were written. It is always the pesticide|
|applicator's responsibility, by law, to read and follow all current     |
|label directions for the specific pesticide being used. The discussion  |
|of specific nut tree cultivars and of specific techniques to grow nut   |
|trees that might have been successful in one area and at a particular   |
|time is not a guarantee that similar results will occur elsewhere.      |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+





NORTHERN NUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION (INCORPORATED)

REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS AT THE FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING

WASHINGTON, D. C. SEPTEMBER 26, 27 and 28, 1923




CONTENTS

   Officers and Committees of the Association                      3

   State Vice-Presidents                                           4

   Members of the Association                                      5

   Constitution and By-Laws                                       11

   Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Convention                15

   Report of the Secretary                                        19

   Some Further Notes on Nut Culture in Canada, Jas. A. Neilson   24

   Address by Dr. L. C. Corbett                                   28

   Address by C. A. Reed                                          33

   Commercial Nut Culture, T. P. Littlepage                       36

   Notes by Mr. Bixby                                             39

   Address, Mrs. W. N. Hutt                                       41

   Report of Chairman of the Committee on Incorporation           47

   Minutes of First Meeting of Directors                          50

   Report of the Finance Committee                                51

   Address by Dr. Oswald Schreiner                                51

   Address by Dr. W. E. Safford                                   54

   Extension Work in Nut Growing, Professor C. P. Close           60

   Roadside Planting vs. Reforestation, Hon. W. S. Linton         61

   Encouragement from Failures in Grafting, Dr. G. A. Zimmerman   64

   Letter from F. H. Wielandy                                     76

   The Chestnut, C. A. Reed                                       77

   Report of the Committee on Nomenclature                        81

   Notes from an Experimental Nut Orchard                         81

   Appendix                                                       88




OFFICERS OF THE ASSOCIATION

   _President_          HARRY R. WEBER,                   Cincinnati, Ohio

   _Vice-President_     J. F. JONES.               Lancaster, Pennsylvania

   _Secretary_          WILLIAM C. DEMING,    983 Main St., Hartford, Conn.

   _Treasurer_          H. J. HILLIARD,             Sound View, Connecticut


DIRECTORS

JAMES S. MCGLENNON, DR. ROBERT T. MORRIS, WILLARD G. BIXBY, HARRY R.
WEBER, DR. W. C. DEMING.


_COMMITTEES_

_Auditing_--C. P. CLOSE, C. A. REED.

_Executive_--HARRY R. WEBER, J. F. JONES, W. C. DEMING, H. J. HILLIARD,
W. S. LINTON, J. S. MCGLENNON.

_Finance_--T. P. LITTLEPAGE, W. G. BIXBY, W. C. DEMING.

_Hybrids_--R. T. MORRIS, C. P. CLOSE, W. G. BIXBY, HOWARD SPENCE.

_Membership_--H. R. WEBER, H. D. SPENCER, J. A. SMITH, J. S. MCGLENNON,
R. T. OLCOTT, W. G. BIXBY, J. A. NEILSON, W. C. DEMING.

_Nomenclature_--C. A. REED, R. T. MORRIS, J. F. JONES.

_Press and Publication_--R. T. OLCOTT, W. G. BIXBY, W. C. DEMING.

_Programme_--H. R. WEBER, R. T. OLCOTT, C. A. REED, R. T. MORRIS, W. G.
BIXBY.

_Promising Seedlings_--C. A. REED, J. F. JONES, W. G. BIXBY, J. A.
NEILSON.




STATE VICE-PRESIDENTS

 Arkansas        Prof. N. F. Drake     University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

 California      Will J. Thorpe        1545 Divisadero St., San Francisco

 Canada          James A. Neilson      Hort. Exp. Sta., Vineland, Ontario

 China           P. W. Wang            Sec'y Kinsan Arboretum, 147 N.
                                         Sechuan Road, Shanghai

 Connecticut     Ernest M. Ives        Sterling Orchards, Meriden

 Dist.
  of Columbia    Prof. C. P. Close     Pomologist, Dept. of Agriculture,
                                         Washington, D. C.

 England         Howard Spence         The Red House, Ainsdale, Southport

 Georgia         J. M. Patterson       Putney

 Illinois        Henry D. Spencer      Decatur

 Indiana         J. F. Wilkinson       Rockport

 Iowa            D. C. Snyder          Center Point

 Kansas          James Sharp           Council Grove

 Maryland        P. J. O'Connor        Bowie

 Massachusetts   C. Leroy Cleaver      496 Commonwealth Ave., Boston

 Michigan        Dr. J. H. Kellogg     Battle Creek

 Missouri        P. C. Stark           Louisiana

 Nebraska        William Caha          Wahoo

 New Jersey      C. S. Ridgway         Lumberton

 New York        Mrs. W. D. Ellwanger  510 East Ave., Rochester

 North Carolina  C. W. Matthews        N. C. Dept. of Agriculture, Raleigh

 Ohio            W. R. Fickes          Wooster, R. No. 6

 Oregon          Earl C. Frost         Gates Road, Portland, Route 1,
                                         Box 515

 Pennsylvania    John Rick             438 Penn Square, Reading

 South Carolina  Thomas Taylor         1112 Bull St., Columbia

 Tennessee       J. W. Waite           Normandy

 Utah            Joseph A. Smith       Edgewood Hall, Providence

 Vermont         F. C. Holbrook        Brattleboro

 Virginia        D. S. Harris          Roselawn, Capital Landing Road,
                                         Williamsburg, R. F. D. 3

 Washington      Richard H. Turk       Washougal

 West Virginia   Fred E. Brooks        French Creek




MEMBERS OF THE NORTHERN NUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION

 ARKANSAS
    *Drake, Prof. N. F., Univ. of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
     Dunn, D. K., Wynne

 CALIFORNIA
     Thorpe, Will J., 1545 Divisadero Street, San Francisco

 CANADA
     McRitchie, Prof. A. R., Arthur, Ontario.
     Neilson, Jas. A., Ontario Hort. Exp. Sta., Vineland.

 CHINA
    *P. W. Wang, Sec'y, Kinsan Arboretum, 147 No. Szechuan Road, Shanghai.

 CONNECTICUT
     Barrows, Paul M., Stamford, R. F. D. No. 30
     Bartlett, Francis A., Stamford
     Bielefield, F. J., South Farms, Middletown
     Deming, Dr. W. C, 983 Main St., Hartford
     Gotthold, Mrs. Frederick, Wilton
     Hardon, Mrs. Henry, Wilton
     Hilliard, H. J., South View
     Hungerford, Newman, Torrington, R. F. D. No. 2, Box 100
     Ives, E. M., Sterling Orchards, Meriden
    *Morris Dr. R. T., Cos Cob, Route 28, Box 95
     Pomeroy, Eleazer, 120 Bloomfield Ave., Windsor
     Sessions, Albert L., 25 Bellevue Ave., Bristol

 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
     Agriculture, Library of U. S. Dept. of
     Close, Prof. C. P., Pomologist, Dept. of Agriculture
     Greene, Karl W., Ridge Road, N. W.
     Gravatt, G. F., Forest Pathology, B. P. I. Agriculture
    *Littlepage, T. P., Union Trust Building
     Reed, C. A., Dept. of Agriculture
     Williams, A. Ray, Union Trust Bldg.
     Von Ammon, S., Bureau of Standards

 ENGLAND
     Spence, Howard, The Red House, Ainsdale, Southport

 GEORGIA
     Killian, C. M., Valdosta
     Parrish, John S., Cornelia, Box 57
     Patterson, J. M., Putney
     Steele, R. C., Lakemont, Rabun Co.
     Wight, J. B., Cairo

 ILLINOIS
     Brown, Roy W., 220 E. Cleveland St., Spring Valley
     Buckman, Benj., Farmingdale
     Buxton, T. C., Stine Bldg., Decatur
     Casper, O. H., Anna
     Clough, W. A., 929 Monadnoch Bldg., Chicago
     Falrath, David, 259 N. College St., Decatur
     Flexer, Walter G., 210 Campbell St., Joliet
     Foote, Lorezo S., Anna
     Holden, Dr. Louis Edward, Decatur
     Illinois, University of, Urbana (Librarian)
     Marsh, Mrs. W. V., Aledo
     Mosnat, H. R., 10910 Prospect Ave., Morgan Park, Chicago
     Mueller, Robert, Decatur
     Nash, C. J., 1302 E. 53rd St., Chicago
     Potter, Hon. W. O., Marion
     Powers, Frank S., 595 Powers Lane, Decatur
     Reihl, E. A., Godfrey, Route 2
     Rodhouse, T. W., Jr., Pleasant Hill, R. R. 2
     Shaw, James B., Champaign, Box 644
     Spencer, Henry D., 275 W. Decatur St., Decatur
     Swisher, S. L., Mulkeytown
     Vulgamott, Chas. E., Cerro Gordo
     White, W. Elmer, 175 Park Place, Decatur

 INDIANA
     Clayton, C. L., Owensville
     Copp, Lloyd, 819 W. Foster St., Kokomo
     Gilmer, Frank, 1012 Riverside Drive, South Bend
     Reed, W. C, Vincennes
     Staderman, A. L., 120 South 7th St., Terre Haute
     Wilkinson, J. F., Rockport

 IOWA
     Adams, Gerald W., Moorhead
     Bricker, C. W., Ladora
     Pfeiffer, W. F., Fayette
     Snyder, D. C., Center Point
     Snyder, S. W., Center Point.

 KANSAS
     Bishop, S. L., Conway Springs
     Fossenden, C. D., Cherokee
     Hardin, Martin, Horton
     Hitchcock, Chas. W., Belle Plaine
     Gray, Dr. Clyde, Horton
     Sharpe, James, Council Grove

 MARYLAND
     Jordan, Dr. Llewellyn, 100 Baltimore Ave., Takoma Park
     Keenan, Dr. John F. Brentwood
     O'Connor, P. J., Bowie
     Perkins, H., 401 Nat. Marine Bank Bldg., Baltimore
     Wall, A. V., Baltimore

 MASSACHUSETTS
    *Bowditch, James H., 903 Tremont Bldg., Boston
     Bowles, Francis T., Barnstable
     Cleaver, C. Leroy, Hingham Center
     Collins, Geo. D., 388 Union St., Springfield
     Johnstone, Edward O., North Carver
     Sawyer, James C., Andover
     Wright, G. F., Chelmsford

 MICHIGAN
     Banine, Chester H., Vandalia
     Charles, Dr. Elmer, Pontiac
     Copland, A. W., 670 E. Woodbridge St., Detroit
     Graves, Henry B., 2134 Dime Bank Bldg., Detroit
     Kellogg, Dr. J. H., 202 Manchester St., Battle Creek
    *Linton, W. S., Saginaw
     Penney, Senator Harvey A., 425 So. Jefferson Ave., Saginaw
     Wallace, Henry, Detroit

 MISSOURI
     Crosby, Miss Jessie M., 4241 Harrison St., Kansas City
     Stark, P. C., Louisiana
     Youkey, J. M., 2519 Monroe Ave., Kansas City

 NEBRASKA
     Caha, William, Wahoo
     Thomas, Dr. W. A., Lincoln

 NEW JERSEY
     Brown, Jacob S., Elmer, Salem Co.
     Clarke, Miss E. A., W. Point Pleasant, Box 57
     Franck, M., Box 89, Franklin
     Gaty, Theo. E., 50 Morris Ave., Morristown
    *Jaques, Lee W., 74 Waverly St., Jersey City
     Landmann, Miss M. V. Cranbury, R. D. No. 2
     Marston, Edwin S., Florham Park, Box 72
     Parry, T. Morrel, Riverton
     Ridgeway, C. S., Lumberton

 NEW YORK
     Abbott, Frederick B., 1211 Tabor Court, Brooklyn
     Ashworth, Fred L., Heuvelton
     Bennett, Howard S., 851 Joseph Ave., Rochester
     Bethea, J. G., 243 Rutgers St., Rochester
     Bixby, Willard G., 32 Grand Ave., Baldwin, L. I.
     Bixby, Mrs. Willard G, 32 Grand Ave., Baldwin
     Brinton, Mrs. Willard Cope, 36 So. Central Pk., N. Y. City
     Buist, Dr. G. L., 3 Hancock St., Brooklyn
     Clark, George H., 131 State St., Rochester
     Cothran, John C., 104 High St., Lockport
     Corsan, G. H., 55 Hanson Place, Brooklyn
     Culver, M. L., 238 Milburn St., Rochester
     Diprose, Alfred H., 468 Clinton Ave., South, Rochester
     Dunbar, John, Dep't. of Parks, Rochester
     Ellwanger, Mrs. W. D., 510 East Ave., Rochester
     Gager, Dr. C. Stewart, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn
     Gaty, Theo. E. Jr., Clermont
     Gillett, Dr. Henry W., 140 W. 57th St., New York City
     Graham, S. H., R. D. 5, Ithaca
     Hart, Frank E., Landing Road, Brighton
     Haws, Elwood D., Public Market, Rochester
     Henshall, H., 5 W. 125th St., N. Y. C.
     Hoag, Henry S., Delhi
     Hodgson, Casper W., Yonkers, (World Book Co.)
    *Huntington, A. M., 15 W. 81st St., New York City
     Jewett, Edmund G., 16 S. Elliott Place, Brooklyn
     Johnson, Harriet, M. B., 15th St. & 4th Ave., New York City
     Krieg, Fred J., 11 Gladys St., Rochester
     Lattin, Dr. H. W., Albion
     Lauth, John C., 67 Tyler St., Rochester
     Liveright, Frank I., 120 W. 70th St., N. Y. C.
     MacDaniel, S. H., Dept. of Pomology, New York State College of
       Agriculture, Ithaca
     McGlennon, J. S., 28 Cutler Building, Rochester
     Motondo, Grant F., 198 Monroe Ave., Rochester
     Nolan, Mrs. C. R., 47 Dickinson St., Rochester
     Nolan, M. J., 47 Dickinson St., Rochester
     Olcott, Ralph T. (Editor American Nut Journal), Ellwanger and
       Barry Building, Rochester
     Paterno, Dr. Chas. V., 117 W. 54th St., N. Y. City
     Pierce, H. Gordon, 103 Park Ave., N. Y. City
     Pirrung, Miss L. M., 779 East Ave., Rochester
     Pomeroy, A. C., Lockport
     Rawnsley, Mrs. Annie, 242 Linden St., Rochester
     Rawnsley, James B., 242 Linden St., Rochester
     Schroeder, E. A., 223 East Ave., Rochester
     Shutt, Erwin E., 509 Plymouth Ave., Rochester
     Snyder, Leroy E., 241 Barrington St., Rochester
     Solley, Dr. John B., 968 Lexington Ave., New York City
     Teele, Arthur W., 120 Broadway, New York City
     Tucker, Arthur R., Chamber of Commerce, Rochester
     Tucker, Geo. B., 110 Harvard St., Rochester
     Vick, C. A., 142 Harvard St., Rochester
     Vollertsen, Conrad, 375 Gregory St., Rochester
     Waller, Percy, 284 Court St., Rochester
     Wile, M. E., 955 Harvard St., Rochester
     Williams, Dr. Chas. Mallory, 4 W. 50th St., New York City
    *Wisman, Mrs. F. de R. Westchester, New York City
     Wyckoff, E. L., Aurora

 NORTH CAROLINA
     Hutchings, Miss L. G., Pine Bluff
     Matthews, C. D., North Carolina Dept. of Agriculture, Raleigh
     Van Lindley, J., (J. Van Lindley Nursery Co.), Pomona

 OHIO
     Beatty, Dr. W. M. L., Route 3, Croton Road, Centerburg
     Coon, Charles, Groveport
     Dayton, J. H., (Storrs & Harrison), Painesville
     Fickes, W. R., Wooster, R. No. 6
     Hinnen, Dr. G. A., 1343 Delta Ave., Cincinnati
     Neff, Wm. N., Martel
    *Weber, Harry R., 123 East 6th St., Cincinnati

 OREGON
     Frost, Earl C., Route 1, Box 515, Gates Rd., Portland

 PENNSYLVANIA
     Althouse, C. Scott, 540 Pear St., Reading
     Anders, Stanley S., Norristown
     Baum, Dr. F. L., Boyertown
     Bohn, Dr. H. W., 34 No. 9th St., Reading
     Bolton, Charles G., Zieglerville
     Boy Scouts of America, Reading
     Druckemiller, W. H., 31 N. 4th St., Sunbury
     Fritz, Ammon P., 35 E. Franklin St., Ephrata
     Gribbel, Mrs. John, Wyncote
     Hershey, John W., Ronks
     Hess, Elam G., Manheim
     Hile, Anthony, Curwensville
     Horst, John D., Reading
     Jenkins, Charles Francis, Farm Journal, Philadelphia
     Jockers, Fred'k J., 4 E. Township Line, Jenkintown
    *Jones, J. F., Lancaster, Box 527
     Kaufman, M. M., Clarion
     Leach, Will, Cornell Building, Scranton
     Mellor, Alfred, 152 W. Walnut Lane, Germantown, Philadelphia
     Minick, C. G., Ridgway
     Paden, Riley W., Enon Valley
     Patterson, J. E., 77 North Franklin St., Wilkes Barre
     Pratt, Arthur H., Kennett Square
    *Rick, John, 438 Penn Square, Reading
     Rittenhouse, Dr. J. S., Lorane
     Rose, William J., 413 Market St., Harrisburg, "Personal"
     Rosenberry, W. H., Box 114, Lansdale
     Rush, J. G., West Willow
     Smedley, Samuel L., Newton Square, R. F. D. No. 1
     Smedley, Mrs. Samuel L., Newtown Sq., R. F. D. No. 1
     Smith, Dr. J. Russell, Swarthmore
     Taylor, Lowndes, West Chester, Box 3, Route 1
     Weaver, William S., McCungie
     Whitner, Harry D., Reading
     Wilhelm, Dr. Edward A., Clarion
    *Wister, John C., Clarkson and Wister Sts., Germantown
     Wolf, D. D., 527 Vine St., Philadelphia
     Zimmerman, Dr. G. A., Piketown

 RHODE ISLAND
     Allen, Philip, Providence

 SOUTH CAROLINA
     Taylor, Thos., 1112 Bull St., Columbia

 TENNESSEE
     Waite, J. W., Normandy

 UTAH
     Smith, Joseph A., Edgewood Hall, Providence

 VERMONT
     Aldrich, A. W., Springfield, R. F. D. No. 3
     Ellis, Zenas H., Fair Haven
     Holbrook, F. C., Battleboro

 VIRGINIA
    +Dodge, Harrison H., Mount Vernon
     Gould, Katherine Clemons, Boonsboro, Care of C. M. Daniels,
       via Lynchburg, R. F. D. 4
     Harris, D. S., Roselawn, Capital Landing Road, Williamsburg, R. 3
     Hopkins, N. S., Dixondale
     Jordan, J. H., Bohannon
     Moock, Harry C, Roanoke, Route 5

 WASHINGTON
     Berg, D. H., Nooksack
     Turk, Richard H., Washougal

 WEST VIRGINIA
     Brooks, Fred E., French Creek
     Cannaday, Dr. J. E., Charleston, Box 693
     Hartzel, B. F., Shepherdstown
     Mish, A. F., Inwood

 * Life Member
 + Honorary Member






CONSTITUTION


     ARTICLE I

     _Name._ This society shall be known as the NORTHERN NUT GROWERS
     ASSOCIATION.


     ARTICLE II

     _Object._ Its object shall be the promotion of interest in
     nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture.


     ARTICLE III

     _Membership._ Membership in the society shall be open to all
     persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to
     place of residence or nationality, subject to the rules and
     regulations of the committee on membership.


     ARTICLE IV

     _Officers._ There shall be a president, a vice-president, a
     secretary and a treasurer, who shall be elected by ballot at the
     annual meeting; and an executive committee of six persons, of which
     the president, the two last retiring presidents, the
     vice-president, the secretary and the treasurer shall be members.
     There shall be a state vice-president from each state, dependency,
     or country represented in the membership of the association, who
     shall be appointed by the president.


     ARTICLE V

     _Election of Officers._ A committee of five members shall be
     elected at the annual meeting for the purpose of nominating
     officers for the following year.


     ARTICLE VI

     _Meetings._ The place and time of the annual meeting shall be
     selected by the membership in session or, in the event of no
     selection being made at this time, the executive committee shall
     choose the place and time for the holding of the annual convention.
     Such other meetings as may seem desirable may be called by the
     president and executive committee.


     ARTICLE VII

     _Quorum._ Ten members of the association shall constitute a quorum,
     but must include two of the four elected officers.


     ARTICLE VIII

     _Amendments._ This constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote
     of the members present at any annual meeting, notice of such
     amendment having been read at the previous annual meeting, or a
     copy of the proposed amendment having been mailed by any member to
     each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting.




BY-LAWS

     ARTICLE I

     _Committees._ The association shall appoint standing committees as
     follows: On membership, on finance, on programme, on press and
     publication, on nomenclature, on promising seedlings, on hybrids,
     and an auditing committee. The committee on membership may make
     recommendations to the association as to the discipline or
     expulsion of any member.


     ARTICLE II

     _Fees._ Annual members shall pay three dollars annually, or five
     dollars, including a year's subscription to the American Nut
     Journal. Contributing members shall pay ten dollars annually, this
     membership including a year's subscription to the American Nut
     Journal. Life members shall make one payment of fifty dollars, and
     shall be exempt from further dues. Honorary members shall be exempt
     from dues.


     ARTICLE III

     _Membership._ All annual memberships shall begin either with the
     first day of the calendar quarter following the date of joining the
     Association, or with the first day of the calendar quarter
     preceding that date as may be arranged between the new member and
     the Treasurer.


     ARTICLE IV

     _Amendments._ By-laws may be amended by a two-thirds vote of
     members present at any annual meeting.




PROCEEDINGS

AT THE

FOURTEENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE NORTHERN NUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION

New National Museum, Washington, D. C.

September 26-27-28, 1923.


(In making up this report the transcript of the stenographer's full
report has been unsparingly cut, in accordance with the vote of the
convention. Copies of the full report are in the possession of the
secretary.)

The Convention was called to order at 2 p. m., Sept. 26, 1923, in the
New National Museum.

In his opening address the president spoke of the need for increased
membership and improved financial condition. He also recommended a
return to the old method of combining the secretary and treasurer in one
office and that the secretary-treasurer should have a fair salary,
suitable quarters, and adequate help. He spoke of his own efforts to
increase the usefulness of the association and expressed his fears that
they had amounted to very little. He quoted the statement of the editor
of the American Nut Journal that what people want to know is whether
they can make any money by the cultivation of nut trees. That statement
led to a campaign to try to locate in the territory of the association
groups of nut trees in profitable bearing. He felt satisfied that there
are numerous paying nut orchards, and he recommended a continuance of
the campaign for locating such orchards.

The president then went on to instance the experience of Mr. Frederick
G. Brown of Salisbury, Mass., at whose place, about two miles from the
ocean, there are two Persian walnut trees, 12 to 15 years old, one of
them about a foot in diameter and twenty feet high, that have borne for
two years. Peach trees will not live at this place. Two miles away at
Newburyport is a tree a year or two younger that bore a half peck of
nuts last year, and another tree 35 years old in bearing for 15 or 20
years. The nuts were spoken of as of high quality.

He referred to Edward Selkirk of North East, Pa., who has a grove of 250
trees about 22 years old of the Pomeroy variety. Last year the crop was
one ton and brought in a little over $500.00. This year the crop is much
larger. For best development of the trees the land should be given over
entirely to their culture.

The president quoted a letter from E. A. Riehl of Godfrey, Illinois as
follows:

My nut plantings are mostly young, many just coming into bearing, while
many others have been top-worked to better varieties, so that money
returns are not what they would be had I started out planting improved
varieties. Part of my aim was to originate better varieties than we had
when I began. In this, I think, I have been fairly successful.

My plantings consist mostly of chestnuts. These have sold readily at 35
to 40 cents per pound wholesale. It is rather a hard matter to give any
idea as to profit, except that we gathered 23 pounds from one tree five
years after topworking on a tree then about three inches in diameter. In
1920, the net return was $1,172.54, in 1921, $1,019.44, in 1922, which
was about a half crop, $1,196.81. All this on land so rough no crop
could be grown on it but pasture. This year's crop promises to be a full
one.

As to walnuts, we have made no record of single trees. The Thomas, by
actual test, gives ten pounds of meat to the bushel, which we sold to
dealers last season at $1.00 per pound, and could not nearly supply the
demand.

Walnut crop here a failure this season. Only a few Thomas trees have a
crop.

If the meeting was after nut harvest, I would send the best chestnut
exhibit that has ever been shown at any meeting.

H. C. Fletcher of Clarkson, N. Y., was quoted as estimating the nuts
produced from two trees each year from 1911 to 1915 as $25 worth.
(Presumably these were Persian walnuts, but this was not stated.) In
1916 and 1917 there were about six bushels of nuts, probably $75 worth.
In 1918 a market basket full. In 1919 and 1920 about $40 worth,
including some trees sold. In 1921 about $50 worth were produced and in
1922 $60 worth of nuts and $30 worth of trees.

In the president's own filbert nursery at Rochester over 300 pounds of
fine nuts were produced for which 30 cents a pound were offered by
grocerymen.

Mr. W. R. Mattoon of the Forest Service of the U. S. Dept. of
Agriculture spoke as follows:

Two years ago, when the Forest Service was planning to get up a bulletin
on growing walnut trees for timber, we found the need to include
information on the nuts also. Mr. C. A. Reed and I together prepared a
manuscript on growing the walnut tree both for timber and for nuts.

It pays to grow walnuts in small groups and singly, rather than in large
blocks, for while they have not proven altogether failures when planted
in large quantities they have been disappointing. Many of the trees
which we planted as close as 6 x 8 feet several years ago, have not
given very satisfactory results because they have not had enough light
and air. The black walnut grows singly in the forest, although there may
be full stands of other trees around it. Our idea is to recommend
planting the black walnut in spots around on the farm, in little
inaccessible places and on the hillsides, where the soil is good; for
the black walnut requires good soil, and we cannot find that quality in
large patches, nor is it usual on slopes of ground. So we must put it
here and there on the farm, along the fence rows and in various places,
but not in groups. The farmer planting in this way becomes its wood
which is used in the most expensive furniture. I believe that mahogany
is the only other wood so valuable. On the other side of the world they
have the mahogany tree for cabinet use, and here in America we have the
black walnut, a cabinet wood that is not surpassed.

The present available publications on this subject are limited but we
are referring people who inquire about it to Department of Agriculture
Bulletin No. 933, "The Black Walnut, Its Growth and Management." That is
midway between a technical and a popular bulletin, and it comprises
about the only available publication that we have at the present time on
the subject of growing the tree. Farmers' Bulletin No. 1123, "Growing
and Planting Hardwood Seedlings on the Farm", deals with the black
walnut along with other trees. Another publication is Department of
Agriculture Bulletin No. 153, "Forest Planting in the Eastern United
States," which considers the black walnut along with the other available
trees for planting.

MR. OLCOTT: For a small orchard would it be proper to plant 160 to 180
feet apart?

MR. MATTOON: When planted in that way you would get nut production and
at the same time, a timber growth. If pruned you get a good log at the
base. The small, ten-foot logs from these trees pay as much as you would
get for an 18 foot log of a taller tree. For forestry purposes, pruning
is a desirable practice.

THE PRESIDENT: But for nut-bearing, what is your opinion?

MR. MATTOON: I should suppose that you would want your orchard trees to
be as low-branched as possible, and with as full foliage as possible.

Mr. Bixby (acting as secretary) then read a paper by H. R. Mosnat of
Morgan Park, Illinois in which he spoke of the number of doctors
interested in nut growing and the need of all men of that character
having a hobby of that kind. He thought that the taxes on many farms
might be paid out of the profits of nut trees planted on the farms and
along the highways. But these nut trees should not be seedling trees.
The apple and the black walnut are said to be the only trees that grow
in every state of the Union. Nuts were one of the staple foods of our
ancestors. We should not be discouraged if we have not yet found the
right nut for the East and the Middle West. We should seek them promptly
because of the rate at which nut trees are being converted into logs. By
next year, he said, he expected to have 25 varieties of black walnuts in
his collection including some hybrids. Machines for cracking black
walnuts by power are now practically perfect and one firm in that
business has cracked about a million pounds in the last few years and
expects to treble or quadruple its business this season if supplies can
be secured. The trouble with most walnut cracking machines is that they
crush instead of crack and small bits of shell are apt to stick to the
meats. But there is machinery now to remove these bits of shell. There
are wild black walnuts that run 16 to 18 per cent kernels, though the
average is only 12-1/2%. It is not always the largest nuts that produce
the greatest proportionate weight of kernels. The picking and cracking
expense with black walnuts is very little greater than with pecans, but
the final cleaning to render the meat absolutely free of shells has been
very expensive. Cultivated black walnuts will of course give better
results, because they have been selected for easy cracking, have kernels
that separate readily from the shell, the product is uniform, and the
nuts require much less grading before cracking than the wild black
walnuts, where every tree bears nuts differing in size, as in almost
every other quality. Figuring 50,000 pounds to the carload it will take
about eight carloads of wild black walnuts to make one carload of
kernels of the same weight. More and more English walnuts and pecans are
being sold in the form of kernels, and black walnuts also will best be
sold in kernels. These can be canned in vacuum glass or metal cans, and
the housewife will use more nuts when she can get the shell-free meats
with her favorite cooking utensil, the can-opener. Confectioners and
bakers will take black walnut meats by the carload in preference to
other nut meats because they have more flavor, and so "go further."

The growing of black walnuts in a commercial way will require education,
but already there is a growing interest. Several of the large weekly
publications have, within the last couple of months, carried full page,
illustrated articles on black walnuts. One of these, in a magazine of
general circulation which is over half a million, within a month
resulted in almost one hundred letters asking for additional
information, which shows that a great many people want to know more
about the possibilities of black walnuts. This interest will certainly
increase when profitable black walnut orchards are actually growing and
paying good profits. Already men are putting in black walnut orchards or
groves of several hundred acres, and one such planting of 1,600 acres is
proposed, but it will be partly hardy pecans. This shows rapid
development into a real industry of magnitude.




Report of the Secretary.

On March 1, 1923, the treasurer, Mr. W. G. Bixby, handed over to the
secretary the funds and books of the association, saying that his time
had become so much taken up that he was able to give too little of it to
the duties of his office. Thus it became necessary for the secretary to
assume the functions of the treasurer as well.

These functions were, in the first place, the payment of the obligations
of the association from the funds available. The funds available for
current expenses were not sufficient for the payment of these
obligations. The secretary therefore took it upon himself to pay these
obligations with funds of the association put aside for other purposes.
These funds were money received from life membership payments that had
been deposited in the Litchfield Savings Society, as a sort of
contingent fund, and other funds from the same source held by the
treasurer and handed over by him to the secretary. These two funds were
completely used up in the payment of current expenses, as will appear in
the detailed statement of the secretary.

These funds, however, were still insufficient to pay the current
expenses, which were, chiefly, the expenses of the stenographer's report
and transcripts of the thirteenth annual convention, at Rochester, and
the cost of printing the annual report. The cost of printing the report
was paid out of the available funds. The stenographer's bill, amounting
to $169.00 originally, but reduced to $135.00 by the stenographer on
representation by the officers of the association that the amount was
excessive, was paid by Mr. Bixby personally, and the association is
indebted to Mr. Bixby in that amount at this moment.

The second function that developed upon the secretary was the management
of the membership lists and matters relating thereto, which, though
perhaps essentially a duty of the secretary of an association such as
this, had been managed by the treasurer since the time when he took over
the duties of the secretary in 1918. This had involved quite an
expenditure for clerical work. This clerical work would still be an
expense to the association, had not one of our members, Mr. H. J.
Hilliard, of Sound View, Connecticut, volunteered to do it. Mr. Hilliard
was formerly connected with a bank, is entirely familiar with the
keeping of accounts, is a man of means and leisure, and I shall take
pleasure in offering his name to fill the vacant treasurership.
Heretofore, this association has had to pay little or nothing for
clerical work which has been done either by the secretary, or by the
treasurer and his personal clerical force.

In accordance with the vote of the Rochester convention the secretary
drafted two letters, one entitled, "To the State Vice-Presidents of the
N. N. G. A. and All Members of the Association"; the other, "To All
Women Members of the N. N. G. A. and to All Women Interested, or
Interestable, in Nut Culture." Both of these letters were sent to all
members of the association, and the letter to women was sent also to a
considerable list of women not members. The results of these letters
were, so far as the secretary has means of knowing, not over a half
dozen letters of appreciation from members, one new woman member, and a
letter of appreciation from another woman.

The secretary has reason to believe, however, that the letters were the
means of stimulating several of the state vice-presidents to activity
in the matter of getting new members, in writing articles for the press
and in giving illustrated talks on nut growing. Among those who are
known to have given such talks or articles, are Dr. Morris, Mr. Weber,
Mr. Spencer, Mr. Smith, Mr. Turk, Mr. O'Connor, Mr. and Mrs. Corsan, Mr.
Reed, Mr. Neilson, Wilkinson, Snyder, Matthews, Kains, MacDaniels,
Fagan, Kaufman, Rick, Bixby, the secretary, and, doubtless, a number of
others.

The secretary has a collection of slides on nut growing which he has
lent two or three times to members for illustrating their lectures. It
was necessary to provide a box for the safe transportation of these
slides which the secretary purchased, at a cost to the association of
$8.85. The secretary also furnished a typed, running commentary for
these slides and, in one or two instances, has furnished negatives and
photographs for making slides and illustrations. The secretary also
offers to furnish outlines for lectures or articles, and has a small
collection of nuts which is available for lectures.

If the funds were available, it would be possible to enlarge the
collections of slides, illustrations and nuts for the use of members who
wished to give talks or write articles.

Possibly the suggestion of the secretary was responsible for the
formation of a subsidiary association in Rochester. On this a report is
desirable from President McGlennon or Mr. Olcott. One or two other
members have written of their intention to form subsidiary associations.

A leaflet was also issued by the secretary announcing Mr. Jones' offer
to give seedling nut trees as a premium to new members. The demand for
these trees not being up to expectation, Mr. Jones very generously sent
out five such trees in place of the original offer of one or two. I hope
that Mr. Jones will make a report of the number of trees thus
distributed. Although the circular distinctly stated that these trees
were premiums for new members, many members understood it as an offer
for renewal of membership as well, and I think that in every such
instance, Mr. Jones himself forgot and sent the trees. A few members,
whose names came in too late, were disappointed in not getting trees.
Mr. Jones has intimated that it may be possible to correct these
omissions this fall. I hope that Mr. Jones will make a statement about
this, and I hope also, that the association will not overlook Mr. Jones'
liberality in distributing these trees entirely at his own expense.

There have been expressions of regret, and I am sure that many more
have felt it, that it has not been possible to go on with the nut
contests and the giving of prizes for new and valuable nuts. As there is
not likely to be any one else willing to assume the really immense labor
involved in the nut contests, conducted as Mr. Bixby has conducted them,
I suppose that all we can do is to hope that circumstances will sometime
again make it possible for Mr. Bixby to resume these very valuable
services for the development of nut culture in the United States. I say
intentionally "the United States," because I believe that these services
have benefitted the whole country. This fact makes me the bolder in
uttering the daring suggestion that perhaps, now that Mr. Bixby has
shown the way, and developed exact methods that may be safely followed,
which, if I do not misapprehend, is what it states that it desires
before presuming to take up any new line of work, the Department of
Agriculture itself might consider it a matter worthy of its attention.
Professor J. A. Neilson, of the less cautious Canadian Department of
Agriculture, is rendering very valuable services of this kind for the
Dominion of Canada.

There is evidence that several more state agricultural institutions are
giving attention to nut growing. (MacDaniels, at Ithaca; J. C.
Christensen, University of Michigan).

There is no need of taking your time now to recapitulate the many things
that ought to be done to promote the planting of nut trees and the
scientific investigation of nut growing. Dean Watt's address, published
in the 12th annual report, and the letter of the secretary to state
vice-presidents, contain outlines for these things. The attention of the
present convention is more particularly to be given to advocating nut
tree planting on a production basis.

Regarding the campaign for new members, perhaps the chairman of the
committee on membership will make some remarks. The present membership
of the association is 337, if we drop no names this year for non-payment
of dues. Of course, those who do not pay their dues should be dropped.
But the association has never made any ruling as to how long names
should be carried on the rolls. The secretary has been easy in sending
copies of the annual reports to members in arrears, hoping that the
conscience-stricken recipients would hasten to pay up. But there is no
proof that such has been the case, and the secretary would recommend
making a rule as to when a member is no longer in good standing, when he
should be dropped from the rolls, and what members are entitled to
copies of the annual report. The secretary would make the suggestion
that there be an amendment to the by-laws to the effect that members
who have not paid their dues within three months from the time of their
first notification, be sent a second notification to the effect that
they are not in good standing on account of non-payment of dues and are
not entitled to receive a copy of the annual report; but that all
privileges may be restored on payment of dues. At the end of three
months from the sending of the second notice, the names of members not
in good standing should be dropped. The annual report should be sent
only to members in good standing.

Mr. Hilliard asked me what our fiscal year was. I answered that I did
not think we had any. It would undoubtedly be a convenience if we are to
have a bank man for a treasurer, and a ruling by the association would
be in place.

Our accredited list of nut nurserymen is out of date and a new list
should be issued. Recommendations as to changes in or additions to that
list, should be considered by the members.

It is desirable that the annual reports of the association should be
indexed and bound, but no hand has yet been found to do it.

Our ambitions have so far outstripped our sources of revenue that we
have come to look on an annual deficit as a normal and defensible thing.
I think it is indefensible. I think it is going to have a bad effect on
our attendance and our morals if the members have to look forward to
what amounts to a good big assessment at every convention. A deficit is
not inevitable. The secretary-treasurer was able to report a surplus at
the first, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh meetings. The income from
membership dues should be enough to enable the printing of the annual
report. But if not I should be in favor of not printing the report until
funds were on hand to pay for it.

In rendering an account of the funds of the association I will first
state that there is on hand, cash in bank, $84.89. This amount must be
charged with the Bowditch hickory prize fund, $25, which leaves $59.89,
cash on hand. We owe Mr. Bixby for paying the stenographer's bill,
$135.00, and Mr. Olcott for printing, $24.58, a total of $159.58. This
makes our deficit $99.69, practically just one hundred dollars.

It should be recalled that in arriving at this result it was necessary
to use up our reserve fund from life memberships, amounting to $225.00.
If we count that in with the deficit, it amounts to $325.00.

A detailed account of receipts and expenditures is herewith submitted.
At the present moment, on account of a rush of other work, on account
of difficulties of other kinds, and because of a division of the work
between Mr. Hilliard and myself, I am unable to give the exact amount
received from memberships and sale of reports and bulletins. This I hope
to correct before the annual report goes to press.


   RECEIPTS

   Turned over by the Treasurer, Mar. 1, 1923:
       Money for current expenses                                $ 89.66
       From life memberships                                       95.00
       Bowditch hickory prize                                      25.00
   From Litchfield Savings Society                                130.00
   Membership dues
   Sale of reports and bulletins

   EXPENDITURES

   Printing report                                               $378.00
   Misc. printing and postals                                       7.50
   Clerical hire and postage                                       47.65
   Postage, telegrams, carriage                                    38.09
   Box for lantern slides                                           8.85
                                                                 -------
                                                                 $480.09

       Due Mr. Bixby, stenographer's bill            $135.00
       Due Mr. Olcott, printing                        24.00
                                                     -------
                                                     $159.58

The report of the secretary was adopted.

The following paper was read by the acting secretary as Mr. Neilson was
unable to be present:




SOME FURTHER NOTES ON NUT CULTURE IN CANADA.

JAS. A. NEILSON, B. S. A., M. S., Extension Horticulturist, Hort. Expt.
Station, Vineland Sta., Ont.

The nut culture activities outlined in the paper presented by the writer
at the convention in Rochester were carried on as much as time and means
would permit during the past year. The search for nut trees has been
continued and has yielded some interesting results. Several valuable
trees of kinds already noted have been located and additional species
discovered. Among these were five pecan trees which have been growing on
the farm of C. R. James at Richmond Hill, a small town fifteen miles
north of Toronto. These trees were about fifty years old and appeared to
be perfectly hardy, as far as growth was concerned, but owing to the
northern location (43.45") seldom produced ripened nuts. The season of
1919, however, was longer and somewhat warmer than most seasons, and a
fully ripened crop of nuts was gathered. The nuts are small with a thin
shell and a fine sweet kernel. The largest tree in the lot is about 35
feet tall with a trunk diameter of 16" and a spread of branches equal to
its height. Another small plantation of pecans was found at
Niagara-on-the-Lake on the fruit farm of John Morgan. Some of these
trees were of grafted sorts and others were seedlings. Both grafted and
seedling trees were making a good growth and appeared to be perfectly
healthy.

In as much as the pecan is native to a country having a longer growing
season and higher average summer temperatures than southern Ontario, it
is quite encouraging to find that these trees will even grow here, to
say nothing of bearing nuts. This would seem to indicate that there are
possibilities for some of the pecan-bitternut and pecan-shagbark hybrids
in southern Ontario where the shagbark and the bitternut grow quite
freely.

I also located two excellent shagbark hickories which have fair-sized
nuts with thin shell and fine kernels. One of these trees grows about
twelve miles west of Simcoe, Ontario, and produces quite a large nut
with a shell so thin that it can be easily cracked with the teeth. This
particular tree is about seventy feet tall and bore ten bushels of nuts
in one season. I have records of several other good hickories and plan
to inspect these at the earliest opportunity.

Several more good English walnuts have been located and examined. Among
these there is one tree over seventy-five years old which at one time
bore thirty bushels of ripe nuts.

A few good heartnut trees have been located at various points. One of
these trees is about thirty-five feet tall, with a spread of nearly
sixty feet from tip to tip of branches. The present owner harvested
several bushels of good nuts in one season from this tree.

I bought with my own funds a bushel of nuts from this tree and sent them
in lots ranging from six to thirty to interested parties in various
parts of Ontario. Of course I know that this is not in accordance with
the best nut cultural principals, but I thought it was one way of
getting nut trees started. If these nuts do not reproduce true to type,
they will serve as a good stock for budding or grafting with the best
introduced heartnuts later on. Another good heartnut was located almost
on the outskirts of Toronto. At five years from planting this tree bore
one-half bushel of fine, thin-shelled nuts.

In my last paper I stated that filberts had not done well in Ontario. I
am glad to state that I will now have to retract that statement and
inform you that good filbert trees have been found near Ancaster, which
is close to Hamilton. These trees were about fifty years old, the
largest specimen being nearly a foot in diameter at the base and about
25 feet tall. The trees bore well, but on account of the hordes of black
and grey squirrels very few nuts were harvested. A fine lot of filberts
was also found at Tyroconnell, a small hamlet on the north shore of Lake
Erie, in Elgin County. These trees are nearly fifty years old and bear
excellent nuts. Much to my surprise I found a fine clump of filberts
growing quite near the campus of the O. A. C. at Guelph. These trees
were introduced from England about sixteen years ago and at first they
did not appear to be hardy, but eventually they established themselves
and are now doing well in growth and fruitfulness. I was somewhat amused
to think that I was searching so diligently for valuable nut trees all
over the Province and did not even know of the existence of these trees,
until a year and a half after I made my initial attempt to discover
valuable nut trees.

I will have to correct another statement made at the last meeting, to
the effect that almonds do not grow well in Canada except on Vancouver
Island. Since then I have found a few, good, hard-shelled almond trees
growing and yielding well in the Lake Erie country. This leads me to
believe that almonds can be grown, with reasonable success, anywhere in
the peach belt, particularly in the lake district.

In addition to my efforts to locate good trees I persuaded the
authorities at the O. A. C. to establish small plantings of some of the
best black walnuts, hickories, Japanese walnuts, and Chinese chestnuts.
I also obtained about five bushels of Chinese walnuts and one bushel of
Chinese chestnuts from northwest China for testing at the experiment
stations, and by other interested individuals. Owing to the length of
time the nuts were in transit the majority of them were unfit for
germination. A few have grown, however, and we hope to get good results
from these.

A collection of nuts containing 60 plates and 21 different species was
prepared and exhibited at the Royal Winter Fair at Toronto and also at
the Livestock Show at Guelph. I was in attendance almost constantly at
Toronto, and endeavored to give all the information possible on nut
culture. Both exhibits attracted a great deal of attention and called
forth favorable comments from visitors and the press.

Experimental plantings of English, Japanese, Chinese, and American
walnuts, filberts and hickories, have been established at the
Horticultural Experiment Station. Mr. W. J. Strong pollenated about 200
black walnut blossoms with pollen of the English walnut. Apparently a
good number (approximately 75%) have set fruit.

A graduate of the Ontario Agricultural College, who has become
interested in nut culture, procured 2,000 black walnut seedlings from
the Forestry Station at St. Williams. These trees were budded, in August
last, with local grown English walnuts, but unfortunately only a few
buds took. An attempt will be made next spring to whip graft the trees
that did not set buds this summer.

There is a marked increase in the interest in nut culture shown by the
public during the past year. This is shown by numerous requests for
information and addresses on nut growing and by the public endorsement
of nut culture by three important horticultural organizations. The
Ontario Horticultural Council, the Federal Horticultural Council and the
Ontario Horticultural Societies Convention each passed a resolution
asking the Dominion Department of Agriculture to appoint a man to
investigate the possibilities of nut culture in Canada. No definite
action has been taken as yet, but it is expected that an appointment
will be made in the near future.

We are giving the boys and girls of Ontario an opportunity to assist us
in our work by hunting for good nut trees, and as an incentive we have
offered prizes of $5.00 each for the best specimens of our various
native and introduced nut trees. This should bring results, because if
there is anyone in this wide world who knows where good nuts are, it is
the small boy.

The work during the past year has generally been encouraging, but like
every other line of human endeavor there have been disappointments. For
example, one bushel of Chinese walnuts was stolen, and a number of good
specimens of other kinds mysteriously disappeared from my exhibition
collection.

Another disappointing feature has been the apathy, and even hostility,
shown by some officials. I do not intend, however, to let these
difficulties discourage me in the least, but plan to carry on and preach
the gospel of beauty and utility as exemplified in our best nut trees.




ADDRESS BY DR. L. C. CORBETT

U. S. Department of Agriculture


The work in nut culture by the Department of Agriculture antedates the
present Bureau of Plant Industry, and to confine the history of the work
to the present Bureau of Plant Industry would not quite do the subject
justice.

From the time of the beginning of fruit work in the Department of
Agriculture, in 1885, nuts have received more or less attention. After
the formation of the Bureau of Plant Industry, in 1901, special
appropriations were received from Congress for the support of nut
investigations, and individuals were appointed to that service in the
department. Mr. C. A. Reed, whom you all know very well, was the first
appointee of this service, devoting his whole time and attention to the
work. He has been with the department for several years, and has given
his time exclusively to the nut problems of the country. Naturally, the
nut problems are not confined to any geographic area, but are
nation-wide; but certain of the plants which have entered into the
problems of nut culture have demanded more attention than others, for
reasons that are the same as in fruit culture. The older fruits, those
better known and longer in cultivation, whose problems are better
understood, require less attention from the grower and from the
experimenter than do the newer ones in the field.

Nut culture in America, as I understand it, not being a nut culturist
myself, consists of two types of projects. We have one type that has
long been practiced by man, that we imported from European countries and
established on this continent. People have cultivated these nuts more or
less intensively for generations, and many of the problems have been
worked out, so far as Europe is concerned. Of course, when introduced in
America, new problems confronted the growers here. The other type of nut
industry is based upon indigenous nuts of which we know little, either
from the orchard standpoint or as to the varieties concerned. Our native
nuts, particularly the pecan, have forced themselves upon the attention
of investigators of the department to much greater extent, perhaps, than
any other nut with which we have to deal. Being a native, indigenous
plant, not yet under cultivation, there is immediately presented the
problem of the choice of varieties, adaption to changed conditions, and
all of the problems arising in connection with a rapidly developing
commercial industry; certain enthusiasts soon become enamored with the
possibilities in the southern parts of the United States for pecan
culture, and they immediately transplant it into new and untried
regions, and as a result their problems have become legion.

The work of the Department of Agriculture in nut culture has developed
really around the growing industries of the country; primarily, around
the pecan, and secondly, around the almond and the walnut, for these are
the more important, commercially. Naturally, the most pressing problems
arise in connection with growing industries; they have growing pains
which have to be eased the same as with small boys.

The Department of Agriculture has therefore found itself in the position
of seeking answers to numerous questions which have been made in
connection with these developing industries. I believe that we have
contributed very materially to the knowledge of varieties, particularly
as regards their adaptation to different geographic locations. We have
also assisted the industries to solve some of their problems of
cultivation, particularly of propagation, and also the problems growing
out of the maintenance of soil fertility. With a new crop, in a new
environment, it is always a problem to know how to manage the soil, and
this is one of the leading lines of activity in the field, at the
present time. In the Bureau of Plant Industry, two offices, that of
Horticulture and Pomology and that of Soil Fertility, are co-operating
in the solution of the soil fertility problems in the pecan regions.

Of course, as the industry developed and became established, the natural
enemies of the pecan and of the other nut trees asserted themselves, as
a result of which there have been set up investigations in the Bureau of
Plant Industry to study the life histories of the various fungi that
attack pecans; and outside of the Bureau of Plant Industry, the Bureau
of Entomology has been devoting time to the study of the control of
insect enemies. So that, at the present, the department is so organized
that three or four important lines of attack are being made upon
problems of these industries. Thus, while at the beginning of the Bureau
of Plant Industry, in 1901, there was no single, individual person
devoting his time and attention to the problems of nut culture, at
present there are quite a group of individuals giving their whole time.
I feel we are making progress in the work, and while we may be lagging
very much behind what we should like to do, we are assisting as best we
can, and are at least keeping in sight of the industry, as it goes
forward.

I will not try to go into details about the work we are carrying on,
because it is better to tell of what we have accomplished than to tell
what we hope to do. We have a man on the Pacific Coast giving his whole
time and attention to the study of breeding and of the cultural problems
of almonds. Besides this, we have two men giving all of their time to
pecans; and during the last year, there has been established near
Albany, Georgia, a station devoted to the cultural problems of pecans.
One gentleman is continuously on the ground with the work, and two
others devote more or less of their time to it.

Now, while these problems connected with the industries are the ones
occupying most attention, the workers in the Department of Agriculture
have not been unmindful of other native nut-bearing plants, such as the
native black walnuts, the hickories and the chestnut up to the time of
the very destructive attack of blight. The chestnut, however, has not
passed out of our sphere of activity, because at the present time, (and
I think you will see tomorrow at the Bell Station, some interesting
possibilities in the future of chestnut culture in this country), the
Chinese forms, which are much more resistant to blight, bid fair to give
us a progeny to make it possible for us also to have a chestnut industry
from the horticultural standpoint.

Probably the day of timber supply from our native chestnut is at an end.
We hope not, but it looks that way at the present time. The
possibilities of growing trees from China, the mollissima, or hybrids of
them, bids fair to place the chestnut industry so that we can contend
with the blight. We probably will not have immune varieties, but those
which are able to live with the blight. That, it seems to me, is a very
important consideration, because chestnuts have always been an important
nut in our eastern markets, and are important in the European markets as
well. While the larger forms of southern Europe will probably not be of
value to us here, if we can establish a nut industry with nuts of fair
quality, as large as our native sweet chestnuts, based on the Chinese
species, the mollissima, then we will be making progress. You may see
some of these trees at Bell Station which are eight or ten years old;
they are bearing quite abundantly, and some of the chestnuts are really
very palatable and of satisfactory size.

In addition to this breeding work with chestnuts, there is under way
intensive breeding work with almonds which has for its object the
development of those more hardy than those now in cultivation in
California. This almond industry, though large, is handicapped because
of the late frost injury, and it is desirable to get those which will
bloom later and withstand lower temperatures.

The varietal problem with pecans will be ever with us, as long as
varieties are found in the wilds and as long as people continue to plant
seedlings in different localities. That is one of the subjects that is
being given considerable attention.

In addition, the relative productivity of the plants to use as mother
plants is an important one. In the work of the Department of Agriculture
in connection with citrus fruits, it has been found that the individual
bud carries over into its progeny the ability to produce fruit not only
of a given type, but also the productivity of the parent to the progeny.
A long series of records of the behavior of individual trees have been
secured; we are building up a mass of information on which to base
selections for better parent trees than any available at the present
time. If the pecan behaves like the citrus fruits of California, we will
be able in the future to have strains and varieties which will be very
much less variable than those at the present time.

The propagation, selection, disease and cultural work covers the field
that is handled by the Bureau of Plant Industry. We always like to dream
of the future, and we are pleased to have the dreams come true. We must
have in mind the possibility of better black walnuts than we have at
present; and after the great inroad into the industry made at the time
of the War, when the trees were used for timber purposes, there should
be a greater effort on the part of the people in the northern districts
to propagate black walnuts, not only for nuts but also for timber. The
black walnut is a very great asset not only for timber and for
ammunition purposes, but for food as well.

The hickory tree is in the same class as the black walnut--it is a
valuable timber tree as well as nut tree. No other timber is as valuable
for the construction of wheels as hickory, and while the "disc wheel"
has served a useful purpose in railroad car construction, it is not
likely that it will replace hickory altogether in the construction of
wheels of motor vehicles. We are veritably a nation on wheels and we
will always be looking for material with which to carry us through the
country. As I have said, we are a nation of people on wheels, and if
your propaganda did nothing more than to stimulate an increased interest
in the production of hickory for timber purposes, it would be
accomplishing a great result. But I believe that there are varieties
among the hickories which should be to the North what the pecan is to
the South. There are those which are very large and those which are
thin-shelled, and those of fine flavor; as a food product I think the
shellbark is second only to the pecan. And I should hail the day with
great interest when there are good, recognized varieties of hickories
corresponding with the best varieties of pecans. I believe they will be
found and developed.

I have told you something of what we are doing and of what we hope may
result. I hope that you will all visit the offices of the Department
carrying on this work, and that you will get acquainted with the men
handling the various projects, and tell them what your troubles are,
that they may know how to proceed, and that they may discuss with you
the best ways of attacking and handling the problems with which you are
confronted.

Prof. Lumsden of the Federal Horticultural Board spoke of the chestnut
bark disease and the fact that our experts advise us that within the
period of twenty-five years the destruction of the native American
chestnut will have been accomplished. The tanners and related interests
of the country are now scouting around to find some species of tree to
use as a substitute for tanning operations. Castanea mollissima is
capable of developing into a good sized tree. From an economic
standpoint the texture of its lumber is good, while the quality of its
fruit is fair, and as an ornamental tree it has a future. It has
resistance to the chestnut bark disease. It may become a substitute for
C. dentata. Several crosses have been made between C. dentata and C.
mollissima and some of them show considerable merit. Selection of these
hybrids will have to be made for two purposes, namely wood production
and fruit production.

Corylus colurna, the Constantinople filbert, is destined to become
popular as an ornamental. On the Pacific Coast a bacterial blight occurs
in some sections on corylus. A great work can be done in this country by
the Northern Nut Growers Association by publishing bulletins advocating
plantings of nut bearing trees for a three-fold purpose, timber, food,
and beauty.

Communications were read from Miss Frances L. Stearns, Instructor in
Botany of the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Junior Colony, asking information
about planting nut trees, and from Mr. J. A. Young, Secretary of the
Tree Lovers Association of America, asking the association to adopt
their slogan and to co-operate with it in urging the more intelligent
planting of trees, shrubs and flowers.

The evening session on Sept. 26th was called to order at 8:10 and a
moving picture reel, "The Almond Industry in California," loaned by the
Dept. of the Interior, was shown. Following that an address with lantern
slides was given by Mr. C. A. Reed of the Dept. of Agriculture, on his
recent trip to China.

MR. REED: In 1910 certain Americans in China conceived the idea of
exporting the walnuts produced in that country to America. The
experiment proved so successful that they continued to do so, and
shipped their walnuts to this country year after year. The business
built up very rapidly, until the war broke out when, for the time being,
the industry was forced to a standstill. But as soon as the war was over
the business picked up again, and had assumed such proportions, about
two years ago, that American growers wanted to know how much longer the
Chinese would be able to send walnuts over here. Most of the nuts from
China were of inferior quality to those produced in this country.
Records of the exports showed that there had been an increase from China
each year; but as to the methods used, the extent of orcharding, or the
growth in planting, etc., the matter had not been written up, and the
consuls had not the remotest idea. It was finally decided by Congress,
therefore, that a special appropriation for an investigation should be
made. So a special trip was made to China to ascertain, first of all,
the probable trade from there for the next ten or twenty years. Our
people felt that more walnuts would be coming here, and they wanted to
know about this before they planted any more here. It fell to my lot to
make the trip, a year ago this summer.

We went first to Honolulu; then to Manila and Japan, and finally to
China. We went into the section just to the right of Tientsin. By
superimposing a map of China over that of the United States you may see
that China more than covers this country; China is considerably larger
than the United States.

Our basic point was Peking, which is in about the same latitude as
Philadelphia. We found that walnuts were grown all through this section
of China, not very much farther north than Peking, but not much farther
south than Shanghai. There are walnuts cultivated here, in the Chinese
way, over a great area; but we were convinced that the exportation of
walnuts to this country was not likely to increase, for the business has
apparently reached its height. American trade takes the best nuts; the
second best go to Canada, the third to Europe and the fourth and fifth
to Australia.

Our first expedition into the country was almost directly north of
Peking. We went down the railroad about 15 miles, to Shaho, where we
employed donkeys and a ricksha, and rode across country some 12 or 15
miles. Here we found a very excellent Chinese hotel, and surrounding
orchards of perhaps 300 trees. Some of the consular reports in China
stated that this place was one of the three sections in which the finest
shipments of nuts were produced.

We next went to the east of Tientsin where we found quite a number of
orchards and trees claimed to be from 150 to 200 years of age, although
we found, after travelling a short time and inquiring from the Chinese
farmers, that the figures they gave to us were probably inaccurate. We
finally ceased to ask the Chinese farmers for figures of that sort. It
was very interesting to note the difference in Chinese and American
methods. For instance, in China, the land may be owned by one or by
several people, who will lease the land or the trees, or perhaps even an
individual tree, for a period of years. White marks placed on the trees
indicate their ownership.

Young walnut trees were very scarce. We were told in one province that
Chinese merchants, who had been forced out of Russia because of economic
conditions there, and had lost everything, had come home and were
seeking something with which to make money. They were already planting a
considerable number of walnut trees, and were growing crops under the
trees, planting crops of millet first, and then of soy beans later in
the season. Another crop they use is called kaolin (pronounced "gollin"
in this country).

Very few of the trees are ever pruned systematically, or taken care of;
the Chinese seem to have no idea of this. Of course, the rainfall there
is at a different time of the year than ours. Fall, winter and spring,
in North China, are practically without rain. Consequently, the
atmosphere is very dry.

Here and there we found trees that struck us so favorably that we made
notes with the intention of going back to the trees to get scions for
propagating purposes for this country. We were told that one of these
trees had borne 800 pounds of nuts. I suppose, however, if that was so,
it was green weight, and included the hulls. This tree was on the
grounds of the Y. M. C. A., about 80 miles below Shanghai, the farthest
south we went. The tree had been planted by missionaries, and had made
splendid growth. There were not many walnuts south of that point,
however. In the province of Shanshi the soil is of a washed nature,
subjected to rains, and we found there huge gorges that had evidently
been forming for centuries. All of the soil there, that is not too
uneven to be cultivated, is terraced; and along the sides of the
terraces walnut trees are planted. We usually found tunnels along the
sides of the terraces. These were dug around the bank so that the water
would run through the tunnels instead of over the terrace.

We saw no indications of blight. We thought we saw it in one case, but
when we examined the nuts, it proved to be nothing but insects working
on the hulls.

Wherever we went, we were told by the Chinese that they harvest their
walnuts at about the time of the year which in America would be about
the first week in September. We found, however, that the nuts were off
of the trees and assembled on the ground for sorting and drying, long
before that. They were put in windrows covered with millet straw and
left for ten days, after which time the hulls were chipped off with
knives and the nuts immediately washed and put on the market. I was
particularly struck with the mechanical motion with which the Chinese
men worked; it was just as regular as a machine. This was the first time
that characteristic came to my attention, and afterwards I was struck
with the same thing everywhere.

Each farmer takes his products, whatever they may be, to a common town
called "market town," and there they are bought by the local merchants,
or the "compradors." The exporters are missionaries and foreigners who
make no effort to buy from the farmers, for the tradesman, or comprador,
can get the nuts at a better figure than can the foreigners. The
tradesman gets his commission in addition. The baskets of nuts are
carried on poles placed over the shoulders of the Chinese.

One of the principal walnut centers of Chantung Province is 25 miles
from the railroad, and we made quite an effort to reach it. An
agricultural missionary, a Mr. Gordan, made the trip there with me, and
we found it a badly infested section. We arrived about three o'clock in
the afternoon and took about one hour going around to see the nuts.
There were places within the wall where nuts had been assembled, and we
made estimates as to the number of pounds. I think there were from 100
to 150 sacks of nuts in a pile.

Many of the women and children grow walnuts and these crops are
inspected and sorted before being shipped to Peking. In the early
summer, we saw quantities of apricot kernels being transported to the
market and sold as almonds. We had understood that China was quite an
important almond-producing country, but I doubt if there are any almonds
in China. I did not see a tree, nor did I get an indication that there
were any there.

One of the largest chestnut trees that I saw measured eight feet and
would have been valuable for timber purposes. It was in one of the very
attractive little orchards of chestnut trees in the north of Shansi and
northeast of Tientsin. We understood that there were very large orchards
to the north, but you might say that there is no such thing as a large
orchard in China. We counted about 100 trees in such orchards, and we
made notes as to their bearing habits. We found the chestnuts of
pleasing quality, of a fair size, and not quite as large as European
nuts but larger than the American. We did not see many of the trees
which had been allowed to develop normally. They are not of special
value in China, and consequently, the branches are removed as high as
possible, and often the tops are cut out.

The Chinese have a species of native peanut which is very shrivelled and
hard; but missionaries from this country have introduced there the
American peanut, which is now grown so extensively that Chinese exports
have disturbed our market conditions considerably.

The Chinese allow nothing to go to waste. When the peanuts are removed
from the ground and cared for, the soil is sifted so that no peanuts
will be lost. The American peanut grown there is served in little
butterdishes on the hotel tables, as a delicacy.




THURSDAY MORNING SESSION, SEPTEMBER 27


Meeting called to order by President McGlennon, 10:15 a. m.

The president appointed as Nominating Committee to nominate officers for
the ensuing year, Dr. Robert T. Morris, Prof. C. P. Close, J. S.
McGlennon.

Mr. T. P. Littlepage, of Washington, D. C., then spoke on the subject of
Commercial Nut Culture.

This is a very difficult subject to discuss, for the reason that, as
yet, there are very few facts upon which to base any conclusions about
commercial nut culture in the North.

First, let me say that the principal point upon which we base our
opinion that nut culture in the North has commercial possibilities, is
the fact that growing throughout many sections of the North are
thousands of nut trees, pecans, walnuts, hickories and butternuts, many
of which grow very fine nuts. It would be a repudiation of all known
laws of natural science to conclude that trees budded and grafted from
these desirable parents would not grow and bear the same as they do.
Therefore, we are perfectly safe in concluding that if there are
successful nut trees growing, others also will grow. Let us proceed to
consider some of the requirements.

First, there is the soil requirement. But before considering the soil
requirement, I might add that we must keep within reasonable latitude of
the homes of the native trees. This subject has been fully covered in
previous reports of our association, and I do not care to go into a
detailed discussion of it, except to say that prospective planters of
commercial orchards should read the previous reports of the association
on this subject, and keep in mind that somewhere north of the home of
the parent trees, is a line north of which these trees will not bear.
This line is dependent upon several things, altitude, topography and
other elements. As an example, I merely mention that orange orchards
flourish in California at the Philadelphia latitude.

Going on with the question of soil, upon this subject alone might be
written a whole volume. But a few points are essential. Most nut trees
require a deep, well-drained soil that is not swampy or seepy, and over
which there are no overflows during the summer season. Pecans grow along
the river bottoms where there are heavy overflows in the winter, but
such an overflow in the summer would probably kill the trees. Nut trees
seem to flourish well on land that is underlaid with clay as a subsoil.
In fact, almost any kind of good farm land is suitable for some of the
different kinds of nut trees, provided it does not come within the
restrictions above mentioned. The better the land, however, the more
successful will be the growth of the trees, and I very much doubt
whether it pays to put any kind of desirable tree on undesirable land. I
have heard it said of pedigreed stock that about ninety percent of the
pedigree is in the corn crib, five percent in the man that does the
feeding, and five percent in the blood. Perhaps these percentages might
be subject to some variations. I shouldn't reduce the corn crib
requirement, and I think about ninety percent of the success of our nut
trees will depend upon the land.

The next point to be considered is the question of varieties and, in
this connection, it is essential to remember that nuts are produced to
be sold and eaten; therefore, it is important to keep in mind the
requirements of the consuming public. Upon this question also have been
written many thousands of pages which, when all summed up, simply
amounts to this: get the best varieties that will bear in your
particular locality. This can be determined to some extent by what
native trees are growing in your particular locality, although not
entirely so. In many sections of the country, there are no native pecan
trees, and yet these trees flourish very successfully when brought from
some other section. On this point the prospective planter of commercial
orchards should seek the best advice obtainable.

The third requirement for a commercial nut orchard is cultivation and
attention. Many of the nut trees will grow and bear without any
attention whatsoever, but they will take your time for it. I have seen
wild pecan trees that were not over twelve or fifteen feet high at
twenty-five years of age. I have seen cultivated trees larger than that
at eight years of age. A tree responds to care and cultivation the same
as corn or potatoes or any other of the cultivated crops. The lack of
cultivation is just as detrimental to them as to these crops. Young
pecan trees should be hoed five or six times each summer, and when they
get to be four to seven years of age, there ought to be a constant,
clean cultivation, from early spring until late in the summer, followed
by a good cover crop to be turned under the following spring at the
beginning of the cultivating period. They should also be given plenty of
good, commercial fertilizer.

If the prospective planter of commercial nut orchard has enough faith
and hope and follows the suggestions given above, he will not be
dependent upon charity in his old age.

DR. JORDAN: I am interested as an amateur pecan grower, and I would like
to ask what varieties will be of most profit, commercially, that can be
grown with a reasonable hope of success in the northern latitude.

       *       *       *       *       *

MR. LITTLEPAGE: The question is a very difficult one to answer, but the
important thing is to stick to the kind that grows the best in your
locality. The Posey is grown in Lancaster County, Pa. The parent Posey
tree grows in Indiana, and I had the pleasure of naming it. That tree is
a good bearer, and it is the thinnest-shelled northern-grown pecan with
which I am familiar. It is a very beautiful nut, with the exception that
frequently one side of the kernel will not fill out as it does on the
other sides. It is not defective, but simply deficient. It will have one
full sized kernel but it is not perfect in shape. I myself do not think
this a very serious objection.

The Major is a fine bearing pecan, but the question is whether it is
large enough to be good commercially. The Niblack is the highest
flavored pecan.

The following letter from Mr. J. F. Jones, vice-president of the
association, was then read:

I am very sorry not to be able to attend the meeting this year. My son,
who has the overseeing of the outside work and, in my absence, the
general work, is incapacitated, due to an operation for appendicitis
last week and, with a number of men at work on particular jobs, I cannot
get away.

I am sending a few nuts which may be of interest to visitors. About half
of my young pecan trees are bearing this year and a few trees are quite
full. So far, Busseron shows up the best in bearing, with Posey second,
and Niblack third. The English walnuts are a good crop. Mr. Bush has a
big crop of these, and older trees in general have a good crop. The Rush
hazel is bearing a big crop as usual. So far this is the only variety in
any species to bear heavy annual crops here. The weather, seemingly, has
no effect on the setting of the nuts. Last spring we had it down to 10
above zero when this was in bloom, but it set a full crop from both hand
and natural pollenization. Hybrids of this and the best large fruited
Europeans which have come into bearing are very promising, but it is too
early to judge as to their bearing.

Put me down for new memberships or cash as last year, or for my part in
any arrangement that may be decided upon to take care of the
indebtedness of the association, or to advance its usefulness. I shall
also be glad to extend the offer of two nut trees as last year, to new
members, if it is thought this will help in securing the new members.
Offerings this year would be Stabler black walnut seedlings, Chinese,
Mayette, Franquette, Eureka, etc., in the English or Persians. Also
seedlings of the Rush hazel, if wanted.

Having been nominated vice-president of the association two years ago,
it may be understood that I am in line for the presidency this year upon
the retirement of our honorable president Mr. McGlennon. If so, I wish
to ask the nominating committee not to consider my name as I cannot
accept this responsibility. With the vast amount of correspondence
incidental to supplying information to those wanting to engage in the
growing of nuts or nut trees, and growing and selling nut trees,
experimental work and breeding new types and varieties, I have my hands
full and could not do this position justice. We also have members in the
association better fitted for this position who can give it better
thought and attention, and who can advance the association and the
interests of nut growers more than I can, while I can be of more benefit
to the association and the nut industry in general without taking on the
duties imposed by any official position.




NOTES BY MR. BIXBY

Thursday, Sept. 27


Trip by automobiles to Mr. Littlepage's farm at Bowie, Md., and to the
U. S. Experiment Station at Bell.

Mr. Littlepage has an orchard of 275 trees covering thirty acres of
pecans and Stabler black walnuts, the first pecan trees being set in
1914, and the Stabler black walnuts some three years later. Now both are
starting to bear, a few nuts having appeared last year, and a very few
nuts the year before.

The trees are growing finely, the leaves have a fine dark green color,
and nuts were noticed in clusters, the pecans being in clusters of 2, 3,
4 and 5; and the black walnuts in ones and twos.

That the orchard has been given good care is evident. Commercial
fertilizers and green manures have been used. A winter cover crop of rye
was grown last fall and plowed under this spring, and a summer cover
crop of soy beans was grown this summer and will be plowed under this
fall.

The varieties noticed in bearing were the Major, the Greenriver, Stuart,
Busseron and the Indiana. Of the above, all are northern varieties,
excepting the Stuart, which is a southern variety which has given
evidence elsewhere of being able to grow and to bear further north than
almost any other southern variety.

The pecans are set in blocks, the earlier ones being set 60' x 60'. Mr.
Littlepage became convinced after his first plantings that this was too
close, and the last planting of pecans was 100' x 120'.

The black walnuts are planted along two fence rows, the trees being
fifty feet apart, the total length of the rows being about
three-quarters of a mile. The peculiarity of the Stabler black walnut of
bearing some nuts where the kernel is in one piece, that is where one
lobe of the kernel has not developed, was noticed in some of Mr.
Littlepage's trees. There is going to be, in future years at Mr.
Littlepage's place, an opportunity to study this peculiar behavior of
the Stabler black walnut, that could be carried on at the parent tree
only with great difficulty, because of the inaccessibility of the tree,
in the first place, and the inaccessibility of the flowers, owing to
their great height above the ground, in the second.

At Bell Station was seen Dr. Van Fleet's work on chestnuts. Some ten
years ago Dr. Van Fleet began this work for the purpose of getting
something that should be blight proof, or at least strongly blight
resisting and that would furnish the nuts which the chestnut blight is
rapidly making impossible of production. With this end in view, some ten
years ago Dr. Van Fleet planted nuts of the Chinese chestnut, Castanea
mollissima, and planted out the seedlings. He also procured from the
place of J. W. Killen, at Fenton, Md., nuts of Japan chestnuts that had
withstood the blight up to the time the nuts were planted. The first
thing to be found out was how well these would resist the blight. None
were found to be immune, although the trees are still alive after ten
years exposure. Dr. Van Fleet's ambition was to get a blight-resistant
chestnut the size of the Japan chestnut with the delicious flavor of the
chinkapin. This, as yet, has not been accomplished, although some very
good nuts much larger than chinkapins were seen. One interesting fact
noted as to resistance was that the Japan chestnut, which is not
generally supposed to be as resistant as the Chinese chestnut, was at
Bell Station apparently standing up just as well.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the evening session, Thursday, Sept. 27, a rising vote of thanks was
given to Mr. and Mrs. Littlepage for their hospitality of the afternoon.
The president then introduced Mrs. W. N. Hutt, editor of the Progressive
Farm Woman, of North Carolina.

Mrs. Hutt quoted H. G. Wells as saying, "The primeval savage was both
herbivorous and carnivorous. He had for food hazel nuts, beech nuts,
sweet chestnuts, earth nuts and acorns." She went on to say:

In Spain and Southern France, the chestnut is now used much more than in
the past. You should know in what appetizing forms they are cooked. It
is a question how you should cook the chestnut if you do not want to
spoil its flavor. Should you steam it, boil it, or what? When you want
it in bread, or when you use the tasteless forms, it is first steamed or
boiled, and later is mashed up and made into bread, or mixed with
cheese or tomatoes. But if you want to develop the flavor, then roast
it, pick it out from the shell and crush it, using almost no other
flavor with it.

Have you ever realized how much we depend on the walnut in cooking? Take
the pecan, or perhaps almost all of the nuts; the flavor is diminished
by cooking. But the walnut is the one nut that gains in flavor by being
cooked. This means a great deal for the popularity of the walnut.

A friend of mine was captured by the Germans, and was sent out each day
into the forests to gather acorns to be used in the prisoners' food. The
friend said that many a time he thought he would rather die than to have
to eat or gather any more acorns.

Farmers' Bulletin No. 712, "The School Lunch," by Caroline Hunt, has
been especially valuable in the preparation of the school lunch with
nuts. There is a man who comes to North Carolina every winter, who will
tell you that he lives on ten types of nut oils and nut butter.

The great mass of people out through the country are not yet ready to
comprehend this; but once they are educated to the value of nuts, the
demand for them will be unlimited.

As to the question of economy, the prices should not go up any farther;
they will not be used enough until they become cheaper. With many boys
and girls in a family, a dollar's worth of nuts, at $1 a pound, will not
go far. If we could get nuts at more reasonable prices it seems to me
that women would consider them more than they do for food. They want
them not only for their parties, but in everyday life.

We should popularize nuts through newspapers. It pays to advertise, and
little notices in the paper are much more far-reaching than any other
way of telling the story of the nourishment to be found in nuts.

As to the value of nut trees in landscape work, a real estate man told
me that when he wanted a good price for a house he planted fruit trees
at the back of the house, and nut trees on the sides. He would talk
about those trees to the people who came to buy, and has sold many
houses in this way.

Then take Arbor Day, and we have one in nearly every state in the Union.
If we could get the papers and the forest magazines to talk about Arbor
Day, and urge everybody to plant something, and particularly to plant a
nut tree, it would not be long before we got results. I could not think
of anything much more patriotic than planting avenues of memorial nut
trees. Nut trees are better to look at than are many of the monuments
erected, and the patriotic societies do not realize the truth in this.
There is a case where with a stroke of the pen, the nut trees could be
increased all over the country.

Then consider the home demonstration agents in the country. They have
the women organized and are in touch with the men of progressive thought
and feeling everywhere; and it seems to me that we could make more use
of them. It would seem that if this organization could in some way raise
the money to have someone talk at these demonstration meetings, it would
not be long before the value and the beauty of nut trees would show the
use of doing this splendid work. What more effective methods could there
be than to go to the state meetings held by home demonstration agents
twice a year, and talk nuts to those people? They go home and talk these
same things to all of the women in their little organizations and
communities. There is no rapid transit method more effective than that.
Then, when the women are taking up a subject like that, men are apt to
read it also.

Another form of advertising that is equally important is in men's
organizations. A number of years ago Mr. Hutt went down through the
eastern part of the state on the old farmers' institute work. He took
with him a case fixed up to display nuts. He talked about them, and
especially about pecans. The people had never seen anything but the
little, old, wild pecan, and they became enthusiastic. When you get a
farmer enthusiastic you are doing something. The people became quite
enthusiastic and planted quite a number of orchards. Mr. Hutt left the
department and the new man who came in was not particularly enthusiastic
about nuts. Then Mr. Curran came into the work and decided there was
nothing he could do better than to urge them to plant nut trees. He is
trying to get an unlimited quantity of pecans and walnut trees planted
and he hopes to have a large number of trees put in within a few years.

To paraphrase what Mr. Littlepage said this morning, in connection with
the raising of hogs, in getting the world to plant more trees, to use
more nuts and to appreciate the value of nut trees for both beauty and
use, you need 90 percent of advertising; and let the 8 percent be the
man and 2 percent be the nut.

       *       *       *       *       *

DR. MORRIS: Last year, when my experiments with the use of paraffin
grafting had apparently been completed, I included what I knew of this
subject in a little book, and this brought out letters from all parts of
the country, in fact from all parts of the world, reminding me that I
had not completed the subject of the use of paraffin in grafting. From
tropical countries men complained that my suggestions about the use of
one particular kind of paraffin, "Parowax," were not applicable to their
part of the country where the paraffin would melt in the summer sun.
Then, from some of the regions where the nights were cold, they said the
paraffin would crack and leave the stocks bare, owing to the change of
temperature.

We are consequently faced with a necessity for extending our information
on this subject. My reason for presenting it, before I have completed
investigations, is to get suggestions from members of the audience here,
and from practical nurserymen. I have written a number of books on
various topics, and have never sent one out without feeling sorry that
it was not time for the next edition.

The theory is that if we cover a graft completely with melted paraffin,
including the entire scion, buds and all, we have accomplished several
things. In the first place, the paraffin prevents the graft from drying
out before new cells can make union with cells of the scion.

In the second place it fills all interstices where sap would collect.

In the third place it provides an airtight covering so that the free sap
pressures, negative and positive, under different temperatures, will be
analogous in stock and scion. When there is low sap pressure we assume
that some of the sap may be drawn out of the scion. This airtight
covering prevents that.

In the fourth place it provides a translucent covering, which allows
action by the actinic rays of light, which brings the chlorophyll into
activity. All plant growth is conducted under the influence of
chlorophyll, and the actinic rays of light activate this. Consequently,
I seemed to have a perfect grafting material in this Parowax, which we
may find in any grocery store. In my locality this wax worked perfectly
and, theoretically, nothing more was to be desired. It melts at 125
degrees farenheit.

I have brought with me a specimen of a pear tree that I grafted in this
way in July of this year. You will see that the Parowax covering is
still complete. The new shoots have grown about eight inches since July
1, and I do not see how you could imagine anything more perfect than
this specimen, from which I wrote my description in the book. As a
matter of fact it is by the use of the paraffin method that I seemed to
have solved the very great problem of making it possible for anybody to
graft anything, and at any time of the year. The most difficult thing to
graft is the shagbark hickory, and we have even done that every month of
the year, except December and January. This year we are going to try
those months, for I believe that the hickory tree may be grafted any
month of the year.

Now the point of my remarks will relate to different kinds of paraffin.
This Parowax, which melts at 125 degrees farenheit, will be satisfactory
in the north temperate regions. We may raise the melting point ten
degrees, if we like, by the addition of the carnauba wax, which,
however, is highly crystalline. A crystalline wax is not desirable
because it cracks and permits the air to enter and we have a desiccation
of the scion. The Standard Oil people will furnish paraffin with a
melting point of 138 degrees, and that will cover all of our needs for
hot countries. But in getting paraffins that melt at 136, 137 or 138
degrees we have a rather definite crystalline element. Mr. Bixby has
suggested the use of the earth wax which is mined in Australia. It is
really a fossil paraffin and is not so granular. I found that it is not
to be had in this country at the present time, however, although various
dealers told me that they had it, and I obtained from a firm in New York
City a misbranded specimen called "Ozokerite," which they said is a
technical term for this particular fossil paraffin. But it was nothing
of the sort; it was something they had made up for themselves. Mr. Bixby
kindly gave me a pound or so of the real "Ozokerite," so I had the
genuine thing to experiment with. We may then settle the question of
obtaining paraffines which have a high melting point, by knowing that
they may be obtained from any of the Standard Oil people.

Knowing that we must have, in addition, the elastic feature, I found one
man who had succeeded by adding something to a high melting-point
paraffin. He said that it was a secret, but I soon found that it would
be no secret to a bee. It would seem, then, that this quality in beeswax
would be valuable, since the secret formula from this same dealer has
little more than beeswax in it. Beeswax is a different kind of organic
product from paraffin and I would not expect them to mingle naturally
when in melted solution, but apparently they do. You will find that the
specimens which contain this wax are very smooth to the touch, and
apparently are more homogeneous than paraffin.

The subject for experiment then, for members of this audience, is that
of finding some substance that may be added to give elasticity, but
which will not change the melting point. In the South we may require in
addition something to whiten our paraffin. Some men in Southern
California wrote me that they had fastened white paper about each graft
and put a rubber band over it. I suggested this plan to one or two men
in Australia and in Ceylon, who had complained about the melting of the
Parowax, and I have not yet received their replies. I have been trying,
however, to simplify things in the way of grafting. In addition to the
elasticity that we need, we must have whitening, and for this purpose we
must add something that will not be poisonous to the tree but will mix
with the paraffin readily and give a white paraffin, which will
interfere somewhat with the actinic light. I have found that carbonate
of lead will mix well with paraffin. Carbonate of zinc will also mix
well. They are both heavy, so heavy that they need a certain amount of
stirring. A lighter substance is citrate of zinc, which will give
elasticity, and which will probably also give a white effect. It melts
with the paraffin and, being neutral, it will do no harm to the tree.

I have given you an outline on which I wish discussion, for I hope to
get from this audience the information and suggestions that will enable
me to make my experiments in the right way so that by next spring we may
have no further need for discussing the question as to the correct
paraffin method in grafting.

MR. BIXBY: There is another wax that is not so crystalline as the
Parowax, and that is Candelilla, which is produced in Texas and New
Mexico. It may be obtained from the wax importers in New York City, not
from the Standard Oil Co., but the importers. I will find out just where
it is from. I can easily get samples. Its melting point is not so high
as Parowax, but it is much higher than any of the other waxes.

DR. MORRIS: Then by mixing it with the high-melting point waxes, those
of about 138 degrees, we might get good results.

MR. BIXBY: I think so, and without introducing the crystalline element.

Prof. H. H. Hume of Glen St. Mary, Florida was then asked to speak. He
said that he uses fresh pine gum from the turpentine cups to make
grafting wax stick. This will mix with beeswax and give the elasticity
needed for winter work (in the South). Also it is unaffected by a
temperature as high as 120 degrees. He uses a mixture of high grade
rosin, beeswax and pine gum with which pieces of cloth are saturated.
Gum should be obtained in the spring when it is purest. It is thin
enough to pour out.

Dr. Zimmerman said that he had tried pine gum with paraffine and it
would not mix.

Prof. Hume said that beeswax can be had in various shades up to pure
white.

Dr. Morris said that black grafting wax attracts heat and excludes
actinic rays. He prefers a translucent wax.

Prof. Hume stated that in the country where Jacksonville, Florida, is
there are 100 miles of roadway under construction which will be planted
with nut trees where possible. He added that once when he was ill for a
long time the doctor finally ordered a glassful of milk and a handful of
pecan kernels for his diet. He tried it and it worked.

Dr. Zimmerman said that for grafting wax he had used equal parts of
paraffin, stearic acid and beeswax with good results.

Dr. Morris stated his belief that the simple splice graft is the
strongest kind.




FRIDAY MORNING SESSION

Sept. 28th.


The chairman of the Committee on Incorporation was called upon for a
report and spoke as follows:

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Under the Code of the District of Columbia there is a
provision of law whereby any educational, scientific or charitable
association can be incorporated and become a body corporate with all of
the rights of any other corporation, so far as the corporate entity and
liability is concerned. The provision of the District Code is a very
liberal one and drafted to encourage such societies as this. The
committee therefore thought it better to incorporate under this
provision of the law than under that of some other state.

The advantages of incorporating a society of this kind are several. It
makes the action of the organization that of a legalized corporation and
takes away liability of individual members. If anyone should desire to
donate money to the organization, we would have a corporate entity that
would be responsible under the law for the safe handling of such funds.
Under the law we can hold such funds up to the point where the income is
not more than $25,000 a year. In the District of Columbia a corporation
can take title to real estate, transfer property and do all necessary
things in accordance with its by-laws. We therefore concluded that there
could be no objection to incorporating under such laws. So with the
consent of the other members of the committee, I prepared in my office
the proper certificate of incorporation which, under the requirements of
the Code of the District, are as follows:

     KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS, That we, the undersigned, all of
     whom are citizens of the United States and a majority of whom are
     residents of the District of Columbia, desiring to associate
     ourselves for scientific and educational purposes and for mutual
     improvement; and to organize a corporation under sub-chapter three
     (3) of the Incorporation Laws of the District of Columbia, as
     provided in the Code of Law of the District of Columbia, enacted by
     Congress and approved by the President of the United States, do
     hereby certify:

     FIRST: That the corporate name of this company shall be The
     Northern Nut Growers Association, Incorporated.

     SECOND: The term for which is it organized is perpetual.

     THIRD: The particular business and objects of the society are the
     promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and
     their culture, and, in general, to do and to perform every lawful
     act and thing necessary or expedient to be done or performed for
     the efficient conduct of said business as authorized by the laws of
     Congress, and to have and to exercise all the powers conferred by
     the laws of the District of Columbia upon corporations under said
     sub-chapter three (3) of the Incorporation Laws of the District of
     Columbia.

     FOURTH: The number of directors of the said corporation for the
     first year of its existence shall be five.

     IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have hereunto affixed our hands and seals
     this 27th day of September A. D. 1923.

                              Karl W. Greene (Seal)
                              Albert R. Williams (Seal).
                              Thomas P. Littlepage (Seal).

     DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, TO WIT:

     I, Alice B. Watt, a Notary Public in and for the District
     aforesaid, do hereby certify that Karl W. Greene (of the District
     of Columbia), Albert R. Williams (of the District of Columbia) and
     Thomas P. Littlepage (of the State of Maryland), parties to the
     foregoing and annexed certificate of Incorporation of _THE NORTHERN
     NUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION, INCORPORATED_, bearing date on the 27th
     day of September, 1923, personally appeared before me in the
     District aforesaid the said Karl W. Greene, Albert R. Williams and
     Thomas P. Littlepage, being personally known to me to be the
     persons who made and signed the said certificate and severally
     acknowledged the same to be their act and deed for the purposes
     therein set forth.

     WITNESS my hand and seal this 27th day of September, 1923.

                              ALICE R. WATT,
                                    Notary Public.

     My commission expires December 17, 1923.

The smallest number of members with which corporation is possible, is
three; so I secured two members, Mr. Greene and Mr. Williams, who,
together with myself, prepared this, and put it in proper form. We then
filed it with the Recorder of Deeds, keeping a copy for the files of the
incorporation. The Recorder received it, and the fact that he received
it was proof that it was satisfactory. We are now, therefore, a
corporation.

Of course, we want to put that machinery into action, but in order to do
so a board of directors has to be selected. Then will follow the
election of officers of the Association. Therefore, I have prepared a
report of the meeting of the incorporators, which I will read. As I
said, however, we did this to get the machinery into operation. Next
year the directors will be elected by the members.




MEETING OF THE INCORPORATORS OF THE NORTHERN NUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION,
INCORPORATED.

The organization meeting of the Incorporators of the Northern Nut
Growers Association, Incorporated, was held at Washington, D. C.,
September 28th, 1923, at 10:00 o'clock a. m.

Present: Karl W. Greene, Albert R. Williams, and Thomas P. Littlepage.

Upon motion, Thomas P. Littlepage became Chairman of the meeting.

Upon motion of Mr. Greene, seconded by Mr. Williams and unanimously
passed, the following were elected Directors of the Northern Nut Growers
Association, Incorporated, for the first year of its existence or
thereafter until the annual meeting of the company in 1924.

   James S. McGlennon, of Rochester, New York.
   W. C. Deming, of Hartford, Connecticut.
   Willard G. Bixby, of Baldwin, Nassau Co., N. Y.
   Harry R. Weber, of Cincinnati, Ohio.
   Robert T. Morris, of New York, N. Y.

Upon motion of Mr. Greene seconded by Mr. Williams and unanimously
passed, by-laws of the corporation were adopted.

There being no further business, the meeting of the Incorporators
adjourned.

                              KARL W. GREENE,
                              ALBERT R. WILLIAMS,
                              THOMAS P. LITTLEPAGE,
                                         Incorporators.


THE PRESIDENT: The next action, then, Mr. Littlepage, would be to get
the report of the nominating committee. I call for that now.

Mr. Littlepage: (Reads as follows):




MINUTES OF FIRST MEETING OF DIRECTORS OF THE NORTHERN NUT GROWERS
ASSOCIATION, INC.

The first meeting of the Directors of the Northern Nut Growers
Association, Incorporated, was held at Washington, D. C., September
28th, 1923.

Present: James S. McGlennon, Willard G. Bixby, Robert T. Morris.

Upon motion of Mr. Bixby seconded and unanimously passed, the following
officers were elected for the ensuing year, or thereafter until the
annual meeting of the Incorporation to be held in 1924:

President, Harry R. Weber; Vice-President, J. F. Jones; Treasurer, H. J.
Hilliard; Secretary, W. C. Deming.

There being no further business, the meeting adjourned.

   WILLARD G. BIXBY,

   Secretary of Directors' Meeting.

(The report was adopted by the convention).




REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE

_By Willard G. Bixby_


MR. BIXBY: The finance committee asks the association to instruct the
secretary in the printing of the next report to endeavor to reduce the
size to one-half of the present report.

(Adopted by the convention).

MR. BIXBY: I move as an amendment to Article Two of the By-Laws, that
annual membership be $3, or $5 including a year's subscription to the
Journal. Contributing members to pay $10, this including a year's
subscription to the Journal.

(Motion seconded and adopted by the convention, and the committee on
Incorporation discharged with the thanks of the association).

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I have nearly overlooked the fact that the organization
must now have a corporate seal, with an appropriate inscription. An
appropriate inscription would be "The Northern Nut Growers' Association,
Incorporated." All such seals generally carry some appropriate design,
and there are various ones to be had. I move that a committee of three
be appointed to determine upon the design of this seal, and then later,
if the chairman of the committee will send the design to me, I will have
the seal made and send it to the association.

(Motion seconded and adopted, and Dr. Deming, Mr. Bixby, and Dr. Morris
appointed as committee by the president).

After considerable discussion New York City was selected as the place
for the next convention and the dates Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,
September 3rd, 4th and 5th, 1924.

A vote of thanks to the president, Mr. James S. McGlennon, was adopted.
The secretary was also instructed to write to Mrs. Hutt expressing the
thanks of the convention for her address.

Dr. Oswald Schreiner of the Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Dept. of
Agriculture was then introduced and spoke as follows:

In the successful growing of pecan trees, the proper care of the orchard
is of enormous importance. (To illustrate this point, slides were shown
of a good orchard and a poor orchard on a rather thin soil in the
Coastal Plain Region. In the good orchard, the trees had been well cared
for, the soil fertilized by the growing of legumes and cover crops
plowed under; in the poor orchard, the trees had been neglected and the
soil impoverished by the continuous growing of cultivated crops, such as
cotton and corn. The two views very clearly showed which orchard was on
a paying basis and likely to prove a profitable investment). It is
needless to say that the crop from such a poor, intercropped orchard
would be meagre and unprofitable until the methods were changed. The
growing of legumes to furnish humus, and even the growing of winter
cover crops, such as rye, to be plowed under in the spring, cannot be
too strongly recommended as soil improvers.

When nut trees are grown in orchards, they can no longer be considered
as forest trees to be left to take care of themselves until a rich
harvest of nuts is produced, but must be cared for just as much as any
other fruit tree or cultivated crop or the harvest of nuts will never be
forthcoming.

The fertilizing of nut trees, however, offers more difficulties than do
the annual crops. Experiments on this subject have been few and the
information obtainable is rather meagre. Consequently, a few years ago,
the Office of Soil Fertility Investigation, which is conducting
fertilizer investigations on a large number of the annual crops grown on
the prominent soil types or soil regions of the United States, started,
in co-operation with the Office of Horticultural Investigations of the
Bureau of Plant Industry, a number of fertilizer experiments on pecan
orchards, involving a study of several soil types suitable for nut
production and attempting to ascertain the proper fertilizer
requirements for the pecan on these soils. While these experiments have
been running only five years, which in point of time is very small in
the life of a pecan tree, yet the different fertilizers employed already
show some highly interesting results, sufficient to indicate that
certain fertilizer applications undoubtedly influence the growth of the
tree, its productiveness, and quality of the nut produced.

The experimental fertilizer mixtures are all prepared here in Washington
in a fertilizer-mixing plant on the department's Arlington Farm, on the
Virginia side of the river. The fertilizer house is well stocked with
all of the various fertilizer substances used in agriculture, ready for
mixing; nitrate of soda from Chili, potash from France and Germany, and
our own far western states; cottonseed meal from the South, tankage and
dried blood from the slaughter houses of Chicago and Omaha, Tennessee or
Florida phosphates, and acid phosphate, ammonium sulfate from the coke
ovens of Pennsylvania, Thomas slag from England, in short, all sorts of
commercial materials from near and remote sources, for study and use in
fertilizers.

(Slides were then shown of the exterior and interior of the plant where
literally thousands of experimental fertilizer mixtures are prepared to
study the requirements of the various soils and crops, and are then
shipped in freight cars to the various experiment places. Two slides
showing the application of fertilizer in a large orchard where tractors
are employed in carrying on the various cultural operations and also in
a small orchard where hand labor is employed, were also shown).

The scheme of fertilizer experimentation adopted in this work is rather
complete and so planned as to include fertilizers carrying the principal
fertilizer constituents, phosphate, ammonia and potash, singly, in
combinations of two elements, and in combinations of three elements, in
various proportions in a regularly graded manner. The following scheme
illustrates these mixtures of different analyses, the first figure
denoting the percentage of phosphate, the second the percentage of
ammonia, and the third the percentage of potash in the fertilizer. The
various mixtures are numbered consecutively.

                                     1
                                    ---
                                  20-0-0
                              2             3
                             ---           ---
                            16-0-4        16-4-0
                        4             5            6
                       ---           ---          ---
                     12-0-8         12-4-4       12-8-0
                7              8             9             10
               ---            ---           ---            ---
              8-0-12         8-4-8         8-8-4         8-12-0
        11              12            13            14            15
       ---             ---           ---           ---           ---
      4-0-16          4-4-12         4-8-8        4-12-4        4-16-0
   16          17              18           19              20         21
  ---         ---             ---          ---             ---        ---
 0-0-20      0-4-16           0-8-12      0-12-8          0-16-4     0-20-0

It is quite apparent that in this scheme the entire field of fertilizer
formulas is covered in a regular way. In addition to this formula plan
other experiments are also under way to determine the influence of the
different fertilizing materials, carrying the phosphate, ammonia and
potash, and the influence of lime, rock phosphate, various green
manuring crops, etc. The experiments are carried out in commercial
orchards on several soil types and in several localities.

While the years the experiments have been running are yet too few for
any final conclusions, and the details too numerous to present in a
brief sketch here, there have nevertheless been some very interesting
results from the use of fertilizers which is readily shown by a few
lantern slides. Here is, for instance, a view of a fertilized and an
unfertilized section of one of our experiments in Georgia. The views
were obtained in the fall, and one could tell at a glance, not only that
the unfertilized trees were not as large, but also quite strikingly that
they had nearly lost all of their foliage, whereas the trees on the
fertilized section were still in full foliage, thus presenting a very
strong contrast. The effect of fertilizers on the foliage is shown also
in a series of slides of representative trees, from one of our
experiments in Louisiana, likewise taken in the fall. The first tree had
not been fertilized, the second had been fertilized with phosphate and
the third with potash. The one fertilized with phosphate appeared
slightly larger, but it can again be observed that all three trees were,
at the time the picture was taken, nearly three-fourths defoliated. The
next two trees from the same experiment, fertilized respectively with a
nitrogenous fertilizer and with a complete fertilizer, and photographed
at the same time, show the influence of these fertilizers strikingly in
that they are still in complete foliage, as well as showing a more
vigorous growth. Three slides of fertilized and unfertilized trees from
still different experiments all show the fuller foliage and better
branching of the fertilized trees, especially those fertilized with the
nitrogenous fertilizers or the complete fertilizers.

The yields of these trees cannot here be taken up but, in general, these
fertilized trees came into bearing earlier and have yielded double and
treble the number of nuts produced by the unfertilized trees.

(In conclusion, there was shown a slide of the yield of nuts from an
experimental tract of a commercial orchard of about 20 acres, in which
the yield from a fertilized acre was compared with the yield from an
unfertilized acre. It was noted that the unfertilized acre gave a yield
of approximately two barrels, whereas the fertilized acre gave an
increase of two bushel baskets more than the unfertilized.)

Dr. W. E. Safford, Botanist, Bureau of Plant Industry, then spoke on the
Use of Nuts by the Aboriginal Americans.

DR. SAFFORD: My interest in nuts has been confined almost entirely to
those of American origin. For a good many years, I have been studying
the plants, and plant products, utilized for food, and for other
purposes, by the aboriginal Americans, before the arrival in this
hemisphere of Columbus and his companions.

In this connection, there is a striking contrast between the American
Indians and the primitive Polynesians. The chief economic plants
encountered by early explorers on the islands of the Pacific Ocean were
identical with well known Asiatic species. Coconuts, breadfruit, taro,
sugar cane, yams and bananas, the most important food staples of the
Polynesians, had been known to the Old World for centuries before the
Pacific Islands were visited by Europeans; the shrub, from the bark of
which the Polynesians made their tapa cloth, was identical with the
paper mulberry of China and Japan; and the principal screwpine, or
Pandanus, from which the Polynesians made their mats, was a well-known
species of southern Asia. A number of these plants had even carried
their Asiatic names with them to Polynesia. The Polynesian language
itself, with its varied dialects, spoken in Hawaii, Samoa, New Zealand,
Easter Island and on other island groups, can be traced without
difficulty to the Malay Archipelago, the cradle of the Polynesian race.

In America, on the other hand, every cultivated plant encountered by
Columbus and his companions was new. Not a single Old World food crop
had found its way to our hemisphere before the Discovery; not a grain of
wheat, rye, oats, or barley; no peas, cabbage, beets, turnips,
watermelon, musk-melon, egg-plant, or other Old World vegetable; no
apple, quince, pear, peach, plum, orange, lemon, mango, or other Old
World fruit, had reached America. Even the cotton which was encountered
in the West Indies by Columbus the very morning after the Discovery,
proved to be a distinct species and could not be made to hybridize with
Old World cottons. Conversely, no American cultivated plants; no maize,
no beans, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes; no cacao (from which
chocolate is made); no pine-apples, avocadoes, custard apples nor
guavas; no Brazil nuts, pecans, or hickory nuts; nor any other American
food staple had found their way to the Old World; even the beeches,
chestnuts, oaks, and maples were distinct; and the same is true of the
New World ground nuts and the grapes, which were the parent species of
our delicious American varieties. Quite unlike anything in the Old World
were such cultivated plants as the Cactaceae, the capsicum peppers, and
the manioc from which cassava is made.

In Polynesia the evidence thus offered by cultivated plants points to
the spread of Asiatic culture eastward across the Pacific, while the
peculiarities of the cultivated plants of America point to its isolation
from all the rest of the world; an isolation which is further
established by a radical dissimilarity of all American languages from
Old World linguistic stocks. In no language of the New World, for
example, is there a vestige of Hebrew, which would support the cherished
theory of the migration to this continent of the lost tribes of Israel;
nor is there a suggestion of any linguistic element to indicate
connection with the Chinese, nor any relationship between the builders
of the American pyramids and those of Egypt.

There are many distinct groups of American languages. Very often the
language of a tribe is quite unlike that of its nearest neighbors; while
at the same time it may resemble the languages of tribes quite remote.
This fact indicates former segregation of the various groups speaking
the unlike languages and a common ancestry or close association of the
tribes speaking the allied dialects. As examples, I might mention the
Quichua Indians of Peru, whose language is very unlike the languages
spoken by the Arawak and Carib Indians to their northward and, at the
same time, quite distinct from the languages of their Brazilian
neighbors to the eastward. The Aztecs of Mexico spoke a language
differing radically in structure as well as in vocabulary from the Maya
language of their Yucatan neighbors; yet there is unquestionably a
relationship between the Aztecs and a number of very distant tribes,
shown by resemblances of their languages, as in the case of the Shoshone
Indians of the northern United States and the Nuhuatl tribes of Salvador
and Costa Rica. In the same way, the Algonquian dialects, which differ
greatly from those of the Iroquoian, show a close relationship between
very widely scattered tribes in North America, from North Carolina to
Quebec. Such resemblances and radical differences point to a very remote
and long-continued segregation which permitted the independent formation
of distinct linguistic stocks; while the antiquity of man in America,
both north and south of the equator, is further attested by the
development of such a cultivated and highly specialized food staple as
maize, whose ancestral prototype we have sought in vain. Its endless
varieties, fitted for widely diverse conditions of soil and climate,
also point to a long period of cultivation in dissimilar culture-areas,
which enabled them to adapt themselves to conditions very different from
those of the original stock from which they sprang.

All this evidence points to the peopling of this continent at a very
remote time, perhaps as far back as the close of the Glacial Epoch; and
it also indicates that the early progenitors of our Indian tribes had
left their original homes in the Old World before any of the linguistic
Old-World stocks had taken shape; before Sanscrit was Sanscrit; before
the languages of China or any other Asiatic people had become
established; and just as in this hemisphere the natives developed their
own languages from the most primitive elements of speech, so most
certainly did they develop their agriculture from the wild plants of the
fields, the swamps, the hillsides, and the forests. In both respects, as
I have already pointed out, they differed from the Polynesians who
brought with them to their island homes not only their language but
their agriculture, from the cradle of their race in the Malay
Archipelago; cuttings of seedless breadfruit and of sugarcane, fleshy
roots of taro and yams; even trees, like the Indian almond and the
candlenut.

Here I would like to point out to the members of the Nut Growers'
Association the chief difference between nuts and other food staples.
Nearly all of our cultivated vegetables, including maize, beans,
potatoes, sweet potatoes, squashes and pumpkins, are annuals, sensitive
to frost, which must be raised from seed each year, and which differ so
greatly from the primitive plants from which they came that their
ancestral forms cannot be definitely determined. Most of these
vegetables are in all probability of hybrid origin, the result of cross
pollination and selection. In the case of our native nuts the conditions
are quite different. We know the original ancestor of the pecan, our
hickories and our walnuts. The fine varieties now cultivated are not
hybrids but have been selected from wild trees. In connection with nuts
I would also point out that in all probability they were the most
important food-staple of primitive man, as well as of his simian
ancestors. It required no great intelligence to gather them or to store
them after the fashion followed by squirrels. Intelligence, however, is
required to plant nuts and to transplant nut trees. Still greater
intelligence is involved in the process of preparing certain nuts for
food. A delicious creamy emulsion, for instance, was prepared by the
Virginian Indians from hickory nuts. Cracking them and removing the
kernels was too long and tedious an operation; so they developed a
method of gathering them in quantities and crushing them in a hollowed
log, together with water, pounding them to a paste and then straining
out the fragments of shells through a basket sieve. The milky fluid
which was thus formed was allowed to stand until the thick creamy
substance separated from the water. The water was then poured off, and
the delicious cream which remained was used as a component of various
dishes. This substance was called by the Virginian Algonkian Indians
"_Pawcohiccora_," a word which has been abbreviated and modified to
"_Hickory_," the name by which we now designate not only the nuts, but
the tree and its wood.

It is interesting to note that a similar creamy or butter-like substance
was derived by a similar process from various palm nuts in Central and
South America. Cieza de Leon describes such a process in his Chronicle
of Peru, in connection with a nut which was described as _Cocos
butyraceæ_, but which was not a true _Cocos_, or coconut. Long before
the discovery of America, a somewhat similar process was used in the
Nicobar Islands for extracting a creamy substance from the grated kernel
of the true coconut, _Cocos nucifera_, which in early times was called
_Nux indica_. This process is still followed throughout Polynesia. Some
of the most savory dishes of the Samoans and the natives of Guam are
enriched and flavored with this coconut cream, which is a substance
quite distinct from the water, or so-called milk, contained in the
hollow kernel of the nut, which is so commonly used for drinking.

Coming back to America, I would call attention to the value of some of
our native pine nuts and acorns as food staples. Certain Indian tribes
of the Southwest live upon pine nuts at certain seasons when they are
ripe. Dr. C. Hart Merriam has told of the utilization of acorns by
various tribes of Indians in a beautifully illustrated article published
in the National Geographic Magazine, 1918, entitled "The Acorn, a
Possibly Neglected Source of Food." "To the native Indians of
California," he says, "the acorn is, and always has been, the staff of
life, furnishing the material for their daily mush and bread." He
describes the process of gathering and storing them, shelling, drying,
grinding the kernels, leaching out the bitter tannic acid, and preparing
the acorn meal in various ways for food. In eastern North America,
several species of acorns were somewhat similarly used, including those
of the live oaks of our southern states. The Spaniards of Florida
sometimes toasted them and used them as a substitute for chocolate or
coffee. Chinkapins were used for food by the earliest English colonists.
They are mentioned by Herriot, the historian of Sir Walter Raleigh's
colony at Roanoke. In addition to these, the early colonists learned to
eat the so-called "water-chinkapins", which are fruits of the beautiful
golden-flowered American lotus, _Nelumbo lutea_, a plant closely allied
to the sacred lotus of India, China and Japan, whose nuts are even now
used as a food staple. The split kernels of the latter may be bought in
the Chinese shops on Pennsylvania Avenue in this city. The rootstocks of
both the American and the Oriental lotus are also used for food. They
resemble bananas joined together end to end, with several hollow
longitudinal tubes running through them.

Before I close, I should like to call attention to a plant, endemic in
eastern North America, whose tubers were called "ground-nuts," or
"Indian potatoes" by the early colonists. The latter name caused the
plant to be mistaken by certain early writers for the white potato,
which was unknown in North America in early colonial days, but which was
confused with the ground nut on account of the resemblance of the
descriptions of the two plants. The white potato, _Solanum tuberosum_,
was discovered in the Andes of South America by Cieza de Leon; it was
quite unknown in North America or in the West Indies in the days of Sir
Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake, both of whom have erroneously been
given the credit of introducing the potato into England. The "potato"
which they observed in the West Indies was not _Solanum tuberosum_,
which we now call the "white potato" or "Irish potato," but a very
distinct plant, _Ipomoea batatas_, which we now call the "sweet potato,"
but which in early days was known as the _batata_ or _potato_. The error
which has become widely spread, can be traced to John Gerarde, the first
author to publish an illustration of _Solanum tuberosum_. In his
celebrated _Herball_ he declares that the potatoes figured by him were
grown in his garden from tubers which came from "Virginia, or
Norembega." It is quite certain that this statement was untrue, and
that, as certain English writers have already suggested, Gerard "wished
to mystify his readers." Whatever may have been his motive, the error
became widely spread. Even Thomas Jefferson was led to believe that
_Solanum tuberosum_ was encountered in Virginia by the early colonists,
and Schoolcraft declared that its tubers were gathered wild in the woods
like other wild roots. The Indian potato of the early colonists is still
abundant in "moist and marish grounds," as described by Herriot. It is a
tuber-bearing plant of the bean family, and is known botanically as
_Glycine apios_.

But I fear my talk has become too discursive, in turning from nuts to
ground nuts, and from ground nuts to potatoes; but the subject, bearing
as it does on the origin and history of cultivated plants, is one which
has great attraction for me, and I hope it may have been of interest to
the members of this association.

Professor C. P. Close, Pomologist, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, spoke as
follows:

MR. CLOSE: The subject I had intended to speak on was "Extension Work in
Nut Growing." Many of you know that I am putting in most of my time on
the fruit end of extension work, but I am also doing some extension nut
work. I was hoping that there would be representatives from many of the
states here, because I wanted to encourage them to get in touch with the
state extension men, to work up interest in nut culture.

My talk will be very brief, but I would like to mention that very few of
the states as yet are doing extension work with nuts, especially in the
North. Some work is being done with pecans in the South.

I have been astounded in talking with the landscape men in the North to
find that they have not considered nut trees as ornamental trees. But
after I mentioned that a walnut or a hickory or a pecan tree is an
ornamental tree, and just as much so as the elm, the oak, or the maple,
they thought it would be a good idea to use them and agreed to recommend
the use of nut trees as shade, lawn and roadside trees. Then I suggested
the filbert for clump planting as an ornamental. I hope in the future
that nut trees and filberts will be used more extensively by the
landscape extension men in their work throughout the country.

In most of the states there are fruit extension specialists but only an
occasional landscape extension specialist; so I try to interest the
fruit men in the planting of nut trees, and a few of them are doing
this, particularly in Indiana, where the fruit extension specialist has
been interested in having pecan and English walnut trees planted in
school yards. It seems difficult to get people to comprehend and
practice nut tree growing and to understand the various uses of nut
trees. We can judge from the small audience at this meeting that there
are not enough people interested in nut growing. In my journey
throughout the country I occasionally run across men interested in
growing a few nut trees, and I try to induce them to become members of
this association; but it seems to be a hard thing to do.

A few days ago I called on a man in New Jersey who said he would have
twenty bushels of hickory nuts and two or three bushels of English
walnuts if the squirrels did not take them. He is up against a state law
which protects the squirrels but does not protect him.

I wish we could send out word with you to the states to get at least a
few people interested in nut culture, and have them write to the
agricultural colleges and the experiment stations and arouse some
interest along this line at those institutions, not only among the fruit
extension men and the teachers, but also among the landscape men as
well. There ought to be more interest taken in this work at our colleges
and universities, and nut culture courses ought to be organized. The
foresters ought to be induced to use nut trees wherever possible.

That is all of the time I care to take at present, Mr. President, but I
wish to say that if there is any way of arousing interest in the states,
I would be glad to carry the word from Washington and to push it just as
hard as possible.

Hon. W. S. Linton, Saginaw, Michigan, spoke on "Roadside Planting vs.
Reforestation," as follows:

As a delegate to the National Tax Association convention at White
Sulphur Springs, it has been my lot to have been named on both federal
and state committees, with the idea of exempting from taxation those who
would produce trees for the future. My experience has been that
exemption from taxation for the purpose of producing our future forests
is a wrong one. The sentiment of the people is against exemption from
taxation, and I do not know how it may be practically applied to the
growing of the forests that our country must have in the future. But the
individual will not carry out the work, and the corporations will not
undertake it, so it devolves upon the government of the state to
reproduce those forests. The government lives for a long period in
between many life-times, and ours should live as long as the earth. It
is therefore up to us to reproduce those forests which we once had and,
as all things come back to the state, then the state should reforest.

Next the roadways are to be considered. Roadways will grow a better
class of timber and trees; they are rich in soil, generally, because
they pass through the most fertile regions of the country and, up to
this time, they have been waste land. I believe that the farmer is right
in his wish that trees which shut in the roadsides should be cut away,
that the sunlight should be let in and the roads hard-surfaced. We saw
in our trip that where the trees shaded the roads they were almost
impassable at times, while in the open places, they were fine.

In Michigan we took up the question of roadside planting, and Senator
Penny fathered the bill, the pioneer measure, that caused our state to
plant roadways. We have a very competent landscape engineer in charge of
one of the departments, and he is planning to grow roadside trees, using
nut-bearing trees, so that the next generation will profit largely by
the work of today. And this is just because of this association.

When I was honored with your presidency, one of the features of the work
we carried on was in getting nut trees from historic places, especially
from Mt. Vernon. The Superintendent of Mt. Vernon very kindly told us
that we could have the walnut crop from trees that were started there
during Washington's time, and the only stipulation was that we should
not commercialize the idea; that those nuts were priceless, and that we
should not receive any money for them, but should distribute them in the
schools and in a public way cause interest in the planting of nut trees.
That very movement brought about wonderful results, and today there are
from five to ten thousand walnut trees growing in our state, about the
height of a man, all of them having come from Mt. Vernon.

On our way through from White Sulphur Springs, we passed through the
home of Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, and we found some magnificent nut
trees planted by Jefferson. Some of our best trees today are from those
given to Washington by Thomas Jefferson; and I arranged at Mt. Vernon to
secure some of the nuts from the trees Jefferson planted there.

Just yesterday Mr. Dodge, the superintendent at Mt. Vernon, again said
that we could have the crop for this year. We will have a number of
bushels from there, although the trees have not been as fruitful this
year as usual, and I leave it to you to judge as to what we should do
with those nuts this year. Some of you have ideas about this, and I
would be glad to adopt them. But when the fact is known that the walnuts
can be secured in that way the entire country will want them. At present
I have letters from Texas and other places asking for some of Mt.
Vernon's nuts. It is a movement that will cause more people, in my
opinion, to have nut trees than any other, and we should push it to the
limit.

I had a letter from Henry Ford's secretary, asking for a dozen trees
which might be planted at Mr. Ford's place in Michigan. Mr. Ford is
doing great good, so far as the saving of the forests is concerned. He
has immense tracts of land where he is caring for every root and branch.

Letter from C. F. Bobler, Landscape Engineer in Michigan:

The laws of Michigan, as you are well aware, encourage the planting of
trees and shrubs by the highway authorities, and protect existing
roadside trees from injury or destruction. Under those laws considerable
planting has already been done, and in such planting a liberal use has
been made of the nut-bearing varieties of trees, especially the black
walnut, which is indigenous to much of Michigan.

Besides the economic value of nut trees, on account of their food
products while growing and their timber products when mature, they are
generally very attractive in appearance, and, therefore, very well
adapted to roadside planting.

Roadside development presents a field for considerable study to produce
plantings which afford a variety of effects in trees and shrubs, by
using varieties best adapted to the soil and climatic conditions, which
best harmonize with the local topography and which to a considerable
extent have an economic value in addition to their ornamental value. Nut
trees admirably fulfill these requirements for roadside planting and
while I believe that such other desirable varieties of trees as the
American elm, the sugar maple, and others, should be used in proper
proportions, I am fully convinced that the varieties of nut trees
adapted to our soil and climate should be used liberally in the planting
of the roadsides of Michigan.

The plans for the future development of the state trunk line highways in
this state, contemplate the planting of the black walnut, butternut,
sweet chestnut, hickory, beech, and other varieties of nut bearing trees
in considerable quantities, and I am confident that their use will add
to man's enjoyment of the highways and that these trees will become an
economic asset to the regions where they are planted.

THE PRESIDENT: There is one thing Mr. Linton mentioned that I wish to
put special emphasis upon; the distribution of trees grown from
Washington's home. Last year Mr. Jones sent out a lot of seedling
walnuts and there are quite a few in Rochester. It was delightful to see
the interest manifested by the people receiving those seedlings and to
hear how the people were succeeding. Some of them have written me.

MR. REED: Possibly it would help if, when any of us here present should
chance to visit historic spots, we would get nuts from such places and
send them to Mr. Linton; from Gettysburg or any of those places. We
should each consider ourselves committees of one to get those nuts and
to deliver them to Mr. Linton.

MR. BIXBY: I will see what I can do about it, and will get some of the
nuts today.

MR. O'CONNOR: I do not know how Mr. Linton would feel about sending to
different schools some of the nuts that were given him by the
superintendent at Monticello, and in letting the children have a little
nursery, and the means to beautify their home towns, but I will say that
if you get the children started in a thing like this, you will have the
parents following up.

MR. LINTON: There is another point I wish to mention. Mr. Dodge sent one
bushel of the walnuts which he said were taken from a particular tree
that he admired. He thought it was the best variety of all of them. That
tree, a year ago, was struck by lightning; so he requests that some of
the trees produced from the nuts of that particular tree, be sent back
to Mt. Vernon, in order that he may have some seedlings from the
original tree. It is a fact that those nuts produced the best yields of
any that we planted in Michigan, showing that the seeds from the best
tree will bring the best results.




ENCOURAGEMENT FROM FAILURES IN GRAFTING

_Dr. G. A. Zimmerman, Piketown, Pa._


After improving from an illness of several years, and feeling tired,
impatient and at times discouraged with progress in my physical
condition, last spring I secured a few bunches of scion wood and turned
to my old boyhood hobby for diversion; this time, however, by working on
nut trees instead of fruit. In presenting the following at the request
of others, I do not claim any originality, but simply draw the attention
of interested parties to some possibilities and probabilities. My
results have been very variable and many of them show as successful a
failure as any one could possibly obtain. The scions referred to in the
following tabulated record were put in from May 20th to July 20th and
were well "mixed together" in the hope of giving better opportunity for
cross pollenization, a few of every variety except the Hales being put
in every day. The Hales were all put in late in July. I have grafted
many other varieties of fruits and nuts but a record of the hickory only
is shown below:

           No.   Growing  Died      % Growing  % Died
 Weiker     46     0       46           0        100    One graft to tree
             5     3        2          60         40    T.W.T 1-1/4" diameter
             5     1        4          20         80    U.W.T.
            23     1        22          4.2       95.8  U.W.T.
 Taylor      5     2        3          40         60    U.W.T. 10" diameter
            27     7       20          25.9       74.1
 Fairbanks  15    11        4          73.3       26.7
 Vest       27     1       26           3.7       96.3
 Manahan    22     7       15          31.8       68.2
             7     0        7           0        100    U.W.T. 3" diameter
 Laney      13     6        7          46.1       53.9
            15     1       14           6.6       93.4  U.W.T. 6" diameter
 Beaver      5     2        3          40         60    Scions poor. But one
                                                            grew 7 ft. 4 in.
 Kentucky   19     7       12          36.8       67.2
            10     1        9          10         90    U.W.T. 5" diameter
 Kirtland   12     5        7          41.6       58.4
            16     5       11          31.3       68.7  U.W.T. 5" diameter
             7     1        6          14.2       85.8  U.W.T. Put on late
                                                            as also the Hales
 Hales    a  6     1        5          16.6       83.4  U.W.T. 3" diameter
          b 35     0       35           0        100    U.W.T. 10" diameter
          c  2     2        0         100          0    T.W.T. 1-1/2%" diameter
          d  4     4        0         100          0    T.W.T. 2" diameter
          e  3     3        0         100          0    T.W.T.
          f  3     2        1          66.6       33.3  T.W.T.
          g  6     4        2          66.6       33.3  T.W.T.
          ----    --      ---         -----      -----
 Total     338    75      263          22.2       77.8

   The last two series of the Hales made 100% start also but bugs
   killed three grafts.

   U. W. T. means a tree from which all the lower limbs were cut back
   to about a foot or eighteen inches and grafted, a few top limbs
   having been left intact.

   T. W. T. means a tree from which the top had been cut, the lower
   limbs and stub having been grafted, although a few of the lower
   limbs were not sawed off.

A study of the above record is interesting. All of my stocks are of the
mockernut type, varying from three-fourths to two inches in diameter,
except a few trees to which I refer specially as T.W.T. and U.W.T. It
will be noted that the Weiker and the Vest made the poorest catches. It
could not have been due entirely to weather conditions or the condition
of the scions, for the scions of these two varieties were equal to
anything I had. In view of the fact that they are both very desirable
nuts, I always carried a few scions and kept placing them frequently as
I placed other varieties. Many Vests were placed at the same time as the
Fairbanks, which shows 73.3% catches. The one Vest that did catch,
however, made a very thrifty growth, showing that it is possible
apparently to do well on the mockernut.

With the Weiker, about the 15th of July, I put five scions on the limbs
and trunk of a tree about 1-1/4 inches in diameter, the top having been
cut out, with three catches, 60%, against another lot of 46 with 100%
failure and 23 more with 4.2% success. Such antics are difficult to
understand.

Many of the scions were put in the trunks of the trees; others were put
on the small branches with the splice graft. The scions placed on the
trunks, or the larger limbs near the trunk, apparently did somewhat
better than the splice grafts further out on the limbs. In the walnut
and other sappy trees, however, the splice graft out on the small limbs
did better.

It is of peculiar interest that all of the large trees from which the
lower limbs were sawed and the stubs grafted, the topmost limbs having
been left, designated as U.W.T., did badly. While in the case of the
five Hales, three had 100% and two had 66.6% catches. These two also had
100% catches but bugs ate the tender shoots and killed three of them.
These trees had the tops cut off last fall leaving only a few lower
limbs. They were put in on July 20th after the sprouts had well started
on the trees. The sprouts were not taken off but their tops were pinched
out. These grafts made a growth of from one to two feet or more. At the
same time a tree was trimmed (Hales b in the record) and all the lower
limbs grafted with Hales, leaving a few top branches only. Thirty-five
were set and not a single one grew. The location of this tree was better
than any of the five above referred to, because a couple of those trees
were standing on the top of a rock where one would wonder how they could
exist, and it was so hot when I placed the grafts that I had to quit and
get out of the sun. In spite of that 100% grew.

A study of the above record leads to the conclusion that there is very
little difference in plant and animal cells and it seems clear that
certain old, underlying principles must be dealt with. I need not refer
to heredity because, while it is undoubtedly quite possible, perhaps,
to influence heredity tendencies so as to get stocks to accept scions
more readily, it is not the major issue for most of us just now. Next
spring we will take what heredity has given us and be satisfied.
However, it appears certain that our results in grafting the various
stocks we now have will depend largely on our ability to:

   1. Regulate plant circulation.
   2. Stimulate cellular activity to a point compatible with wound
   repair, defensive and growing processes.
   3. Control plant cell nutrition.

One of the very first things we physicians do upon seeing a patient is
to investigate his circulation. If the pressure is too low or too high,
for any reason, we immediately take measures to correct it, because we
know that disastrous results will quickly follow if that is not looked
after. Plant circulation, or sap flow, is no less important. Mr. Riehl,
Mr. Jones and Dr. Morris made great strides when they advanced the ideas
of covering the wound and the scion completely to prevent evaporation,
thereby also controlling the sap pressure. With the exception of
shading, pruning and defoliating, this is about the only method we have
of preventing evaporation. Defoliation, of course, interferes with the
tree's power of growth. Controlling the humidity is probably not
practical on a large scale.

A proper and careful cutting of the tree beforehand is important. It
appears that to cut the top completely out while the tree is dormant, so
disrupts the routine circulation that the few lower branches which are
left intact, are well taken care of and, it seems to me, that this,
together with the stimulation of WOUND REPAIR by cutting and allowing
time enough for the cells to get into action, was the prime reason for
the 100% success in the three Hales and the cause of the 100% failure in
the other Hales tree.

Other methods of controlling the circulation are of course drainage,
irrigation, mulching, location of the orchard, placing of condensers of
moisture, such as stones and other hard substances beneath the trees,
and many other contrivances which are in use, and which I shall not
discuss.

With reference to stimulation of cellular activity we are considerably
concerned. In medicine I have found the subject of wound repair and
immunity most interesting, the two subjects seeming to be more or less
related. Some animals will repair wounds and immunize readily, while
others will not. In a general way young healthy animals and human
beings immunize most readily, while older ones frequently fail almost
entirely. Interestingly enough plants seem to be strangely similar in
this respect, and the thing that stimulates cellular activity for
defensive purposes (immunity) apparently stimulates growth and wound
repair. The thing that stimulates most actively for a special purpose is
the thing itself, the best stimulant for wound repair being the simple
injury. To illustrate briefly: In my work last summer I came in contact
with two enemies, yellow jackets and copperheads. The copperhead
stimulated me to carry a club in defense, while for the yellow jacket
the club was of little value and I rather preferred carbon bisulphide.
Had I ignored my senses and allowed nature full sway, as a tree does,
the snake would have injected his venom and the yellow jacket his toxin,
and my cells would have accepted their only alternative and proceeded at
once to build up a specific defense, after which they would have been in
better shape for development, providing the poison would not have been
so great as to prove fatal. Injury to a tree certainly does stimulate
wound repair, defense and growth. It is well known that trees with many
transplantings, root injuries, transplant much more readily, and the
nurserymen use this method of stimulation as a routine procedure. I
learn in Florida that in order to transplant a good size palmetto, they
are in the habit of digging down on one side and cutting the roots the
year before removal. It will then transplant more readily. Pruning has
the same cell stimulating effect if done at a time that will retain the
stored nutrition. An attack of disease just as surely stimulates
cellular activity and growth but it is too frequently followed by
disaster.

We have all heard of driving rusty nails into trees (thinking the iron
produced the beneficial results), cutting a slit in the bark of the
limbs and trunk for "bark bound" so called, etc., all of which have
stimulating effects with more or less permanent injury to the tree. Who
knows but what the sap sucker, with his ability to dig into the bark and
extract a piece of cambium, was not sent to us to aid in preserving our
trees by stimulating new growth?

In my work last summer trees that were subjected to slight injury before
hand apparently accepted a larger proportion of grafts. I will briefly
cite two specific illustrations. A little butternut tree located near
the house was the object of my efforts for over two years. During my
illness I frequently went out and pruned a few branches or put on a few
buds. Something would happen to me and possibly I would not see it
again for months, and in the meantime the buds would be strangled or
knocked off. Another little hickory tree stood in the roadway. Harrows,
plows, wagons and even logs were dragged over it. Grafts on both these
trees caught rather readily last spring. In fact two black walnut grafts
on this little butternut were two of the very few that I got to grow at
all last year. My walnut grafting was almost a total failure. I have
this to say, however, that I had no dormant walnut scions, my scions all
being cut in May or June.

Mr. Jones, by marking the site of his patch bud several days in advance,
admirably carries out this idea by locally stimulating the cambium
cells. Dr. Morris's scheme of using white wax, besides regulating sap
pressure, allows the actinic rays of the sun to stimulate cellular
activity. Cutting the top out of the tree, which disrupts the normal
circulation and throws it into the few lower limbs, besides stimulating
the cells into activity, has apparently in a large measure accounted for
the slight success that I have had. Other methods such as injecting some
substance under the bark, applying antiseptics, or some stimulating
chemical in a similar way, as "Scarlet Red" is used in skin grafting to
increase epithelial growth, may aid materially. Certain chemicals
applied to the tree and leaves, as used in sprays, seems sometimes to
stimulate growth in a way that can hardly always be accounted for by the
checking of the disease for which it was placed.

Much more could be written on cellular stimulation but enough has been
said to encourage others to make observation in this connection, for it
is highly probable that the lack of proper stimulation of the cambium
accounts for more failures in top working trees than we are aware of.




3RD CONTROL OF PLANT CELL NUTRITION

With this topic we are probably less concerned in its relation to
grafting than when the growing and bearing stages come. However, certain
nutritional disturbances appear early and the more vigorously the stock
is growing beforehand the better progress, of course, the grafts will
make when they are started. Whether or not they will start more readily
have I been unable to ascertain, but I have a bunch of little fellows
with a growth of only an inch or so, and so puny that I cannot account
for it in any other way than a lack of proper nutrition. Many of these
little trees, used as stock, are very old in comparison with their size
and they will probably be dwarfs all their lives. It is a question
whether many such trees should be grafted at all. Further observations
will have to be made to decide that point. Perhaps proper preparation
for a year or two would be beneficial.

This topic will largely be left for future discussion under another
subject, but it occurs to me that much might be accomplished by proper
attention to nutrition, especially when setting out trees for grafting,
selection of proper site, fertility of soil, cultivation to aid
absorption, etc. I have observed limbs of animals much smaller than
normal due to prohibited movements or lack of proper circulation, one
side of a tree developed out of proportion, eggs without hard shell due
to lack of calcium in the hen's diet, and I know of an old English
walnut tree that bears nuts with shells so thin as to be almost
negligible. I am told that at one time this tree bore a nut with a much
thicker shell. It has never had any attention and it is quite probable
that the lack of proper shell building elements causes the trouble. I
have grafted a few of these and I want to see what happens by furnishing
better nutrition.

Concerning scion wood, I have "ringed" some limbs, similar to the method
used sometimes in producing extra large fruit, in an effort to have the
scion store up a large amount of nutrition. This experiment I shall
continue in the spring.

This article is based entirely on my own ideas, observations and
conclusions in connection with old standing principles. As previously
stated, I claim nothing new and my only desire is to stimulate others to
make like observations.

Carrying out my conclusions in my work next spring I propose to cut the
tops out of all my trees, leaving a few lower limbs instead of the top
ones, allow them to start growth a little before grafting, pinch the tip
from that growth, and, in addition to covering with paraffin or some
combination of it, shade the scions on the south-west side, either by
tipping branches over them or some other way. Paper bags seem to absorb
the paraffin. Double grafting in the case of the Vest and the Weiker
will be tried. Whitewashing the stock to prevent sun burn will be used
where necessary. Several other experiments based on the idea of cellular
stimulation before the scions are placed in position will be tried.

Dr. M. B. Waite, of the Federal Insecticide and Fungicide Board, U. S.
Department of Agriculture, spoke as follows:

DR. WAITE: Some of you may recall that several years ago, when you were
meeting here in this hall, I gave you a paper on the nut diseases of the
northeastern part of the United States, and it would not be desirable to
go over that same ground again. At that time, we took up the bacteriosis
of the Persian Walnut, and filbert blight, and I outlined a program of
proposed treatment for the filbert blight. It might be interesting to
note here that Dr. Morris, and I believe also Mr. Bean, put that
treatment into practice with success. The situation still remains,
however, that we do not know of diseased plantings of any size. If we
find a real plantation of filberts we will be glad to attempt control
measures ourselves. I have planted about two dozen filberts and they
still remain free from the disease. There are very few local hazel nuts,
wild or cultivated, around Washington; but we understand that the few
hazel nuts are free from this disease.

There are two or three things I wish to mention. One is the repeated
inquiries reaching my office with regard to the non-filling of nuts,
mostly the cultivated nuts, sometimes the pecan, sometimes the black
walnut, and frequently the English walnut. The subject is a complicated
one and the disease is not one that we can put under the microscope and
diagnose at once. The trouble is due to a complex of varietal and
environmental conditions, the effect of the conditions of growth, of
soil fertility, temperature, soil, water and humidity, sunshine, etc.,
on that plant. Very often it is because people get the wrong variety and
do not know what they have. They may have an unproductive seedling.

On the other hand a good variety may fail to bear in a locality where it
is not suited. Very frequently the real lack is in soil fertility. Of
course the success of the pecan trees down South around pig pens is an
old joke to you gentlemen, but there is truth in that. For good nuts
there is often need for a little extra manure or fertilizer, or perhaps
both. Sometimes there are rich pockets in the earth where those trees
would like to grow, or rich bottom lands which will produce without
manure. I think one of the best ways is to fertilize with manure, if
possible. Pollination troubles in connection with the non-filling and
dropping of the nuts should be thought of.

Then there is another angle to be considered, and perhaps I can express
it most definitely to you by citing the example of the June drop of
peaches. Whenever a tree, like the peach tree or the pecan or the black
walnut, sets its fruit in the spring, you will find that there are
cross-pollinated and self-pollinated fruits. These will begin to drop
their nuts or their fruit at definite stages. Furthermore we will find
the abortive seeds are not one size. This means that there were definite
stages of the pollination and of the fertilization. I should like to
work that up and find what the stages are.

The last big step in the dropping of the peach tree is the shedding of
the fruit just as the pits are hardening. When they are hard the fruit
does not fall. So this June-drop question ties in with the complications
of pollination and nutrition. We know from experiments on the sterility
of the pear tree, if highly fed and cultivated, such as those I worked
on in the city of Rochester, that those highly fed trees will have some
self-fertilized pears. In all of the pears we got no pears resulted when
pollinized with the pollen of the same variety, except on those well fed
trees. We learned this in the East, and have since found the same type
of self-fertilized pear occurring naturally in California and other
places in the West. In nut production that whole question of setting and
filling is tied up in a complicated way with pollination and nutrition.

Aside from nutrition the other thing to be considered is that of
disease. The common black walnut around Washington is generally poor
from fungus leaf diseases. Those of us familiar with it around here know
that they do not fruit well. This is not a good place for the common
black walnut. The wild ones are nearly all poor. I was raised in the
Mississippi Valley, where there were large nuts and fine ones, and we
gathered those which fell from the specially good trees. They do not
grow so well here, except the Stabler and a few others.

Leaving that subject, there is another I wish to take up. That is, the
great number of complaints about winter-killing of the English walnut.
Wherever we have been able to trace that down, as we frequently have, we
find that the English walnut suffers more from winter-killing right
around Washington, D. C., and in Pennsylvania, than up in Rochester; and
we also have complaints of winter-killing as far south as Georgia. A
common cause is the variation of moisture. After a dry spring and early
summer soaking rains come in August and September, and the trees,
brought suddenly into growth at the close of the season, when they
should be drying out, the walnut tree in particular, show
winter-killing. So I think one of the main troubles with the English
walnut in the Eastern United States is the winter-killing. Even in
Georgia we may have this trouble with the pecan, young trees two and
three years old, and I have photographed them.

As to false stimulation, in the woods, where these trees grow native and
under the conditions to which they are necessarily adapted, they are
mulched and crowded when young by their competitors. In cultivation we
do not get the crowding and the mulching that makes steady growth and
proper ripening. So you should, by some process, growing corn, cover
crops, or other trees, keep your delicate nut trees a little crowded
and, if possible, mulched while young; and then later, cut out the
undesirable things and let the trees have room.

I am not fully prepared to speak about the nut work of the Bureau of
Plant Industry, because that should be handled by the chief of the
bureau. I have charge only of the diseases of fruits and nuts. We have
had $8,200 allotted to the project and will have $2,000 more this year,
making $10,200. Originally that was $3,000 for nut diseases all over the
United States. We started to work mainly on the southern pecan diseases,
and partly on the bacteriosis of the walnuts of the United States. But
the Southern Pecan Growers' Association got some additional money for
the bureau, $5,000 of which was given to the fruit disease
investigations, and was tied up with the other $3,000. But the wording
of the bill said, "All for pecan diseases." So we transferred more to
the project and made it $8,200 for the nut diseases. That means we have
done very little work for the nut diseases except on Southern pecans,
and I have been warned that one must not stress southern pecans with the
Northern Nut Growers' Association.

We have had, however, one man, and will have two men, on the southern
pecan diseases in Georgia, on pecan scab and pecan leaf diseases, who
are winning out beautifully, and have nearly solved many of the
problems, including the pecan scab. One of the difficulties is the
occasional late summer rainy spell, bringing diseases and bad
conditions. But in general we have solved the problem pretty well.

Then we have the more permanently dangerous disease, pecan rosette,
which has taken about half of the pecans in some sections of the South,
especially in south Georgia and in Florida. That disease is being
experimented upon in the most extensive way of any of our projects.
There is only one word to say about pecan rosette, and that
is--humus--the disease is cured by the application of humus.

MR. REED: How far north is the walnut rosette disease?

DR. WAITE: As far as Falls Church, Va., but not much in the North.

MR. REED: The question was asked yesterday as to whether it could not be
overcome in this latitude.

DR. WAITE: That nobody knows. The soils east and south of Washington are
all acid, and the conditions are wrong for rosette. The soils have no
tendency to chlorosis. They are, in fact, antichlorotic. Theoretically
you could get the rosette conditions in the Piedmont region, but you are
almost certain not to find them over this way.

Now in the organization of the Bureau of Plant Industry there are at
least two main offices where nut problems would be studied; in the
Division of Horticultural and Pomological Investigations and in my
office, where the diseases are studied. Remember, also, that the insect
pests are studied in the Bureau of Entomology; they have experimented
quite extensively with pecan insect pests, and have the organization to
handle such pests. Of course there is a Bureau of Markets and the Office
of Soil Fertility in the Bureau of Plant Industry, which handle the
pecan, incidental to the other studies.

MR. BIXBY: I would like to ask Dr. Waite a question. The association has
spent a good deal of time in developing exact methods of measuring
quantitatively the various characteristics of nuts which are considered
valuable, and that study has given us methods of comparing notes from
year to year, comparing the same nut, and I have noticed that it is
quite frequent that the kind of nut that is good one year, will not be
so good the next year. To take an example, the Clark hickory, which took
the prize one year, the next year fell so far down that it would not
take any prize. But after a good deal of trouble I found that by careful
examination I could pick out from the nuts a few which tested up as they
did before. It occurred to me that a condition of that kind would be
more likely to be due to difference in the soil than in the fertility of
the pollen. Dr. Waite has had more or less experience in noting the
effect of the pollen, and I would like to ask if he thought this the
cause of the difference in the nuts.

DR. WAITE: I think it might be the cause for a little difference, but we
could account for the difference by entirely different things. By
environment and other conditions. Take the apples grown in this
vicinity; I have observed that certain seasons fit certain varieties.
This year it was favorable for Ben Davis, and yet we have had a poor
crop of most varieties; the conditions were bad for the Winesap to set,
but yet the fruit is good. Every year and every day is different; and
plants are subjected to these complications, and the yield, or the
result in fruit, is a response to environment. They are so very
susceptible to these things. I came here this morning after picking some
cross pollenated pears on the Arlington Farm. We have a lot of crosses
there where we study the hybrid seedlings. Some will be almost too poor,
in certain years, to deserve further attention, and good another season.
In other words, these nuts probably do not vary any more from year to
year than many of our fruits and vegetables do, and the main factor is
probably response to environment, namely, temperature, air humidity,
soil moisture and sunshine.

THE PRESIDENT: I might mention that we have had a filbert orchard at
Rochester for eleven years, and there has not been the slightest
indication of blight there yet.

MR. REED: I would like to ask Senator Penny how the Roadside Bill is
taken in Michigan.

SENATOR PENNY: According to the Michigan law, the people along the
roadside consider that their property is subject to the right of
transportation on the highway; just as a stream is owned by individuals
in Michigan, subject to the right of individuals to use it. This bill
says, "Give the right to plant trees on the highway," and I think the
planting is done with the consent of the owner. The agricultural college
has a landscape gardener connected with the landscape department; he
will have charge of planting along the roadside, and I think it will be
done in a scientific manner; but I believe it is necessary to get the
consent of the owners first.

MR. BIXBY: Last evening Mr. Franklin Weims, of Washington, was with me
on the state highway of Maryland, coming south from Baltimore. The
highway is being constructed at the rate of about eight miles a year,
and funds have been provided. Mr. Weims feels that something should be
done to see that the new highway is properly planted with trees,
preferably nut-bearing trees. I was thinking that the association might,
by some resolution, bring that matter to the attention of proper
authorities. I would like suggestions.

MR. CLOSE: It might not be out of order to adopt a resolution and
address it to the Governor of the state, Governor Richie; and also to
the State Forester, Dr. Besly, suggesting that perhaps some of the trees
and seedlings might be presented to the state, some of the trees that
Professor Linton spoke of this morning. Trees of that sort might carry
some weight.

THE PRESIDENT: Suppose we adopt a resolution and name Professor Close to
take up this matter with the proper state authorities, speaking
particularly of our ability to furnish seedlings from the Mt. Vernon
trees.

MR. CLOSE: If it is the wish of the association, I would be glad to do
that. (Motion made, seconded and adopted).




LETTER FROM F. H. WIELANDY, ST. LOUIS

Gentlemen:

First of all I congratulate you most heartily on being members of an
organization which means so much to the public, as consumption of nuts
is largely increasing and I much fear that the present day production is
not in line with the demand.

Although only a nut culturist by proxy I have manifested a deep interest
in this for many years, which is exemplified by the fact that on my
different hunting trips, in which I have indulged for over thirty-five
years, in the past twenty-five years I have also made it a point in the
fall of the year, to have with me a large pocket full of such nuts as I
thought would more easily come up and benefit some one in the future. I
usually carried with me black walnuts, hickory nuts, pecans and acorns,
and in my rambles through the woods and along the highways, I would
plant these where I thought there would be less chance of their being
molested if they developed.

In going over the same ground quail shooting, last fall, ground that I
had covered more or less for a good many years, I began to see the fruit
of my efforts, and felt repaid many fold for what I had accomplished.

Unfortunately we are a nation of destruction, rather than of
construction, so far as our timber is concerned, and this is more
noticeable in fruit and nut trees than in other varieties; although,
being interested chiefly in these I possibly am biased.

When we stop to consider that a country such as Norway began to replant
and reclaim their forests before Columbus discovered America, it strikes
me that it should be a lesson for everyone in this country. Consider
too, if you please, that before the war Germany paid her entire road
taxes from nothing but the production of nut trees along the public
roads. We also know, although a very small country in area, that it
produced enough timber each year to satisfy the need for building and
commercial purposes in the form of packing cases, casks, etc. And here
we are, a country forty times larger than Germany, and forced to depend
on countries such as Canada and Norway for wood pulp out of which we
manufacture a great many grades of paper.

Some twenty years ago I had a political friend introduce a bill during a
meeting of the state legislature, which made it mandatory for the road
overseer to plant nut trees along the right of way all over the state;
but like many meritorious bills, it was pigeon-holed until the next
meeting of the legislature. It seemed an impossibility to resurrect this
and an exceptionally fine forestry bill.

Unfortunately I promised to preside at a meeting of conservationists and
it is for that reason that I am unable to meet and be with your
honorable body, for I would like so much to be permitted in a humble
capacity to assist in carrying on the work which you gentlemen are
doing, as it is going to mean so much to future generations. I am sure
that each of you feels as I do in this matter and that is that "He who
serves others, best serves himself."

When the matter comes up for consideration I would like very much to
have your next convention here in the Middle West, either in St. Louis
or Alton, Ill., which is only a few miles north of St. Louis and in the
vicinity of a splendid nut-producing section, particularly the pecan.




THE CHESTNUT

_C. A. Reed, U. S. Department of Agriculture_


No discussion of the nut industry in the North at this time would be
complete without a brief review of the chestnut situation. The
destruction wrought by blight in wiping out practically all of the
native chestnut trees within its path, with almost equally fatal results
to the European species has for the time being all but eliminated the
chestnut from the consideration of planters in the eastern part of the
country.

The chestnut bark disease has cost the country untold millions of
dollars, and no wonder the public pauses for a second thought before
investing in eastern-grown chestnut trees. Nevertheless, it is not to
be supposed that chestnut growing has disappeared from this country for
all time. No plague has ever been known to wipe a race completely out of
existence, and it is unthinkable that the blight will do so with the
genus _Castanea_.

The native range of the American sweet chestnut centers largely in the
Appalachian region from Portland, Maine, south to Atlanta, Georgia. The
species becomes more sparsely represented as the distance increases in
any direction from this central area, practically disappearing on the
west; in the region of the Mississippi above Memphis. Its northern
boundary might roughly be described as extending from lower Illinois
through northern Indiana, southwestern Michigan, southern Ontario,
central New York and middle New England. As was to have been expected,
the blight has wrought its greatest destruction in places of densest
representation of the chestnut species. It is in the outlying districts
of scant frequency that the danger of infection from chestnut trees from
the forest is least to planted trees, and likewise, there it is that
combative measures should be most successful. Obviously, the farther
from the center of the native range trees can be planted, the less is
the likelihood of infection.

Well outside the native range of the chestnut species, there are a
number of districts in the United States within which it should be
possible to build up a new chestnut-orchard industry. In proof of this,
there are many profitable trees and small orchards in the mid-west and
on the Pacific Coast, particularly in western Michigan, northern
Indiana, southwestern Illinois, in the eastern foot-hill region of
northern California and in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Probably the
most outstanding instance of successful chestnut orcharding now existing
in the entire country is a planting of Mr. E. A. Riehl, of Godfrey,
Illinois, situated on the bluff of the Mississippi River eight miles
west of Alton. Here Mr. Riehl has produced half a dozen or more hybrid
varieties which are paying very satisfactory dividends on fertile
hillside land which is mainly too steep for cultivation. A number of
these varieties have been taken to northern California where they are
proving highly successful.

In the Willamette Valley of Oregon, two species are represented with
about equal frequency. These are the native chestnut from the eastern
states and that from Japan. Neither has performed in such a way as to be
particularly encouraging. The former has not been productive and the
latter has produced nuts of quality so inferior as to prejudice the
planters against the entire genus. It is a difficult matter, therefore,
to induce prospective planters in that section to consider any species
of chestnut.

In the East, it is well known that the native species does not come into
bearing until 12 or 15 years of age at best, and that to induce
pollination and a set of nuts, it is necessary to inter-plant a number
of varieties together. Had groups of varieties of American or European
origin been planted on the Coast, instead of single trees of the former
or varieties from Asia, it is not improbable that the present attitude
toward the chestnut in the Pacific Northwest would have been quite
different.

The work of the late Dr. Van Fleet, in hybridizing various chestnut
species and in testing out Chinese and Japanese species with a view to
determining their value as nut producers and their resistance to the
bark disease, is familiar to most members of the Northern Nut Growers'
Association. Since the death of Dr. Van Fleet, the work has been taken
over by other hands in the Bureau of Plant Industry; but apparently, all
of the hybrids now growing in the vicinity of Washington, D. C., are
destined to succumb to blight. At present, practically every tree of the
Chinese chestnut _Castanea molissima_, planted by Dr. Van Fleet at Bell
Station, Maryland, where his work was mainly centered, likewise shows
large blight cankers. But despite the gravity of the infections, it does
not appear wholly improbable that many of these trees can be preserved.
However, the wisdom of continuing propagation of the Japanese species is
very doubtful, as the quality of nuts is usually of low order. Chestnut
trees from China are generally light producers; but out of the total of
several hundred at Bell, several this year have borne good crops. The
flavor of the nuts is sometimes sweet, but oftener, otherwise; yet the
average is superior to that of the Japanese chestnuts produced in the
same orchard. Fortunately, it happens that the nuts from some of the
trees of Chinese species which have been most prolific during the past
season, have proved to be of high quality, comparing favorably in this
respect with the native sweet chestnut. In size, the Chinese chestnuts
average much above those of the American species, and while perhaps a
shade smaller than those from Europe, they are of a size and quality
which should readily appeal to market demands.

An early planting of Chinese chestnut trees at Lancaster, Pa., put out
by Mr. J. F. Jones, Vice-President of the Northern Nut Growers'
Association, proved so susceptible to blight that all were subsequently
destroyed. On the other hand, not infrequent reports are reaching the
Federal Department of Agriculture of instances in which the species is
shown to be highly resistant, even when grown within blight-affected
districts. Secretary Deming is one of those from whom reports of this
kind have been received. His planting, consisting of 12 trees put out in
1915 near Georgetown, Conn., has recently borne some nuts. Other cases,
some reporting one way and others the other, might be cited; but let it
suffice to say that the chestnut industry, although temporarily set back
seriously, is not necessarily doomed.




REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON NOMENCLATURE

_C. A. Reed, Chairman_


While no new names of varieties appear to need consideration at this
time, it may be well for the Association to refresh its memory regarding
a few of the outstanding rules of the standard code of nomenclature by
which the Society is guided in the recognition of names. In common with
practically all other leading horticultural organizations of the
country, including the National Pecan Growers' Association of the South,
the Northern Nut Growers' Association follows the code of nomenclature
of the American Pomological Society. Some of the provisions of this code
are substantially as follows:

   1.  A name shall consist, preferably, of but one word, although
       under specified circumstances, two words may be permitted.

   2.  In selecting a name, "The paramount right of the originator,
       discoverer or introducer of a new variety within the limitations
       of this code, is recognized and established."

   3.  A name shall be recognized as fixed and shall have the right
       of priority over any others subsequently applied, after having
       appeared in print in such a way as to be definitely tied
       to a variety, or established.

These references call attention to the fact that the code does not
define the meaning of the term "variety," and as it does not appear that
a clear cut definition has appeared elsewhere in recent literature, in
modern application, it may be well to state how it is being interpreted
by this committee.

In horticultural practice a plant is not regarded as acquiring varietal
status until it becomes distinctive among seedlings, because of
superiority of product, unusual history, or other similar reason. Few
tree varieties are recognized as such until after having been propagated
by at least one asexual method, such as budding, grafting, layering or
dividing.

The Committee calls special attention to a recent report on
nomenclature, appearing in a bound volume of 546 pages, under the title
"Standardized Plant Names." This report was prepared and published by
the American Joint Committee on Nomenclature, which was duly appointed
by the leading horticultural societies of the country. It represents the
latest authority on matters of horticultural nomenclature, and is
indorsed by the leading horticultural authorities of the present time.
Of immediate interest to this Association is the fact that _Hicoria_
replaces _Carya_ as being the proper generic name of the hickory group.




NOTES FROM AN EXPERIMENTAL NUT ORCHARD

_Willard G. Bixby, Baldwin, N. Y._


For several years the association has been advocating the planting of
experimental nut orchards, and ever since I heard of this suggestion I
have been desirous of having one and being able to contribute
information to our knowledge of nut growing. Therefore since 1917 I have
been assembling at Baldwin material which I hoped would aid in this. At
the Rochester meeting some of the results were noted, and this year, I
trust, something presented will prove of interest.

CHESTNUTS--Last year I expressed the belief that by carefully watching
chestnut trees and cutting out the blight as soon as it appeared it
should be possible to grow and fruit almost any variety in the blight
area. This I have done with every variety that I have, but that is about
all, apparently, that it is possible to do, for nearly all of my trees
have been badly attacked by the blight at the crown; that is at the
junction of the root and trunk, and to cut out the blight means to cut
down the tree. The most resistant variety noticed so far is the Boone,
which has some Japanese chestnut parentage, but probably the Boone trees
will not last over a year longer.

Apparently it is going to be necessary to get some resistant stock and
do the grafting high enough to prevent fatal attack of the blight at the
crown. Mr. P. W. Wang sent some Chinese chestnuts in the fall of 1921,
and I have now several hundred seedlings of what I suppose are Castanea
mollissima, of which I plan to grow a number to rather large size, set
them out where the next planting of chestnut trees is to stand, and
graft the branches to fine varieties. It will take at least two or three
years, however, before this can be done.

HAZELS--For some four years I have been assembling, for hybridizing
purposes, selected American hazels from various sections of the United
States as well as the various European cultivated varieties that gave
promise of being hardy. This year both blossomed rather freely, but the
only variety of which I had enough pollen to work with was the Italian
Red. The staminate flowers were picked from some six or eight American
hazels which were blooming well and the pistillate flowers were
pollinated with Italian Red pollen, in the hope that some hybrid nuts
would result. Although the pollination was repeated twice I was much
disappointed to find only an occasional nut as a result.

It is to be said in this connection, however, that there were
practically no nuts on these American hazels which had not been
pollinated with strange pollen; so the lack of nuts could not be laid to
the artificial treatment given the flowers of those plants where it had
been planned to make hybrids. Apparently it was due to climatic
conditions that nuts were almost lacking on all hazels here this year;
but I do not recall any severe cold spells when the hazels were in
flower. Still, on one or two branches which I had tagged, as being
particularly full of pistillate flowers, there were noticed an almost
equal number of dead pistillate flowers a little later. It is seemingly
going to be well to carefully study the development of the hazel flowers
into nuts. They grow differently from the walnuts and the hickories. The
hazel flowers apparently, after being fertilized, develop into stems on
which the existence of nuts escapes the attention, at least of the
casual observer, until about August, while the nuts on the walnuts and
the hickories even though small at first, are plainly visible from the
time they are formed by fertilized flowers until they are matured.

HICKORIES--The bearing age of the transplanted hickory so far has been
almost an unknown quantity, and what we did know has been such that the
association has hesitated to say much about planting hickories, its
recommendations on the hickory being confined to that of topworking
existing hickories. These are known to begin bearing soon after
topworking, records of bearing in two or three years not being unusual.

On transplanted hickories, however, about all the information of which I
know is as follows: The late Mr. J. W. Kerr, of Denton, Md., many years
ago bought a number of shagbark hickories from a nursery, set them out
and noted that the time that elapsed before they bore was about 25
years. Mr. Rush's Weiker tree, which bore in 11 years after being set
out, cut down this time materially.

A Kentucky hickory on my place set out in the fall of 1917, flowered
this year, but I had no pollen with which to fertilize the blossoms, and
the nutlets dropped off. A young shagbark seedling set in its present
location in the fall of 1919 and grafted to Barnes this spring, also set
a nut, but this dropped off like those on the Kentucky and apparently
for the same reason. It would certainly seem as if under favorable
conditions, the transplanted hickory is not going to be anywhere near as
slow as feared in coming into bearing.

WALNUTS--A Royal and a Paradox walnut each supposed to be grafted trees
with scions from Burbank's original trees, bloomed this year, and the
Royal has a number of nuts on it. The Paradox has been here a very much
shorter time, not over two or three years; so perhaps it is too soon to
be expecting nuts. The Paradox is said to be a very shy bearer, setting
nuts only occasionally, and then but few; still, one of my Paradox trees
which is not over three feet high, blossomed full. It would seem as if
it might pay to study this tree and see if the sterility or fancied
sterility of this tree could not be overcome by seeing that proper
pollen is at hand at the right time. A Cording walnut, a hybrid between
the English walnut and the Japan walnut not quite 3 feet high, is
bearing a nut this year.

Grafting--Perhaps the most interesting thing to be related is the result
of attempts to determine the species of hickories best suited as stock
for the fine varieties of hickories that we have. In preparation for
this and through the kindness of Mr. Henry Hicks of Westbury, L. I.,
over 100 each of hickory trees of several species were obtained and set
out in the fall of 1919. They were in fine condition for grafting this
spring. There are some fifteen species of hickories native in the United
States. The fine varieties of hickories that we have which are generally
supposed to be largely shagbarks may prove to be much better adapted for
grafting on some stocks than on others. A knowledge of this will prove
to be of great value in top working. The grafting was done by Dr.
Deming, on May 29, 30,31 and June 1 of this year, 31 grafts being set on
shagbark stock, 52 on mockernut, 53 on pignut, 47 on pecan and 91 on
bitternut, a total of 274. There were also 343 walnut grafts set on
walnuts of four species. The results of this work are summarized in the
tables following:

   HICKORIES, SCIONS FROM YOUNG TREES

                           Stocks, Number of Grafts and Per Cent of Catches

                           Bitternut Mockernut[1] Pecan     Pignut   Shagbark  Total
 Variety                   No. %     No. %        No. %     No. %    No. %     No. %
 Barnes, scions
   Dr. Deming's trees      3 100.0   3 100.0      3 100.0   3 100.0  6 100.0   18 100.0
 Gobble, scions
   Dr. Deming's trees      1 100.0   1 100.0      1 100.0   1 100.0  1   0.0    5  80.0
 Griffin, scions
   Dr. Deming's trees      1 100.0   1  0.0       1   0.0   1 100.0  1 100.0    5  60.0
 Hales, scions
   W. G. Bixby's trees     5 100.0   5  60.0      5  80.0   4  25.0            19  68.4
 Kirtland, scions
   Dr. Deming's trees      3  66.7   3 33.3       3  66.7   3  66.7            12  58.3
 Laney, scions
   Dr. Deming's trees      6  66.7                                              6  66.7
 Long Beach, scions
   Parent Tree             3  33.3   3  66.7      4  50.0   4  25.0  3 100.0   17  53.0
 Siers, scions
   Dr. Deming's trees      5 100.0                                              5 100.0
 Stanley, scions
   Dr. Deming's trees      3  66.7   3  66.7                3  66.7             9  66.7
 Taylor, scions
   Dr. Deming's trees      4  75.0   5  60.0      5  80.0   3 100.0            17  86.5

 Total                    34  80.8  24  60.8     22  68.1  22  72.9  11  75.0 113  74.0

[Footnote 1: The mockernuts were larger than any other hickories grafted
excepting some bitternuts referred to in the next footnote. They were
grafted mostly on branches.]

   HICKORIES, SCIONS FROM OLD TREES

                                  Stocks, Number of Grafts and Per Cent of Catches

                                  Bitternut Mockernut[2] Pecan     Pignut   Shagbark  Total
   Variety                        No. %     No. %        No. %     No. %    No. %     No. %
   Brooks, scions from parent tree,
     poor condition               5 40.0     5  0.0      5 20.0    5 40.0             20 20.0
   Clark, scions from parent tree,
     poor condition               5 40.0     5  0.0      5 20.0    5 40.0   5 20.0    25 20.0
   [3]Fairbanks, scions from
     parent tree (?), dry but
     otherwise good              27 57.8                                              27 57.8
   Kentucky, from parent tree,
     poor condition               5 20.0    3  33.3      5 80.0    5 80.0   5 80.0    23 60.8
   Manahan, scions from parent
     tree, poor condition         5 20.0     5  0.0      5 20.0    6 33.3   5 20.0    26 24.6
   Vest, scions from parent tree,
     poor condition               5 20.0     5  0.0      5 40.0    5 60.0   5 20.0    25 20.8
   Weiker, scions from parent
     tree                         5 20.0     5  0.0                5 60.0             15 26.8
                                 -- ----    --  ---     -- ----   -- ----  -- ----   --- ----
   Total                         57 45.0    28  5.5     25 36.0   31 45.6  20 35.0   161 32.9

[Footnote 2: The mockernuts were larger than any other hickories grafted
excepting some bitternuts referred to in the next footnote. They were
grafted mostly on branches.]

[Footnote 3: Of these scions 5 were set in branches on two trees 1-1/4
or so in diameter and showed 100% catches; balance were set in the top
on small trees 1/2 diameter or less, and showed 54.5% catches.]

   BLACK WALNUTS, JAPAN WALNUTS, PERSIAN WALNUTS BUTTERNUTS

                             Stocks, Number of Grafts and Per Cent of Catches

                           Black Walnut  Butternut Japan Walnut  Persian Walnut
 Variety                   No. %         No. %     No. %         No. %

 Adams Black Walnut, scions
   parent tree                 13  15.4
 Alley Black Walnut, scions
   parent tree                  9  0.0
 O'Connor Hybrid Walnut, Persian
   Walnut and Black Walnut (?)
   scions parent tree           9  22.2
                              ---  ----
                               31  12.9

 Ohio Black Walnut, scions W. G.
   Bixby's trees               17  64.7
 McCoy Black Walnut, scions W. G.
   Bixby's trees                9  77.0
 Stabler Black Walnut, scions some
   W. G. Bixby's trees, and some Dr.
   Deming's trees              85  51.2
   [4]Ten Eyck Black Walnut, scions
   W. G. Bixby's trees         32  97.0
 Thomas Black Walnut, scions W.
   G. Bixby's trees            23 100.0
 Wasson Black Walnut, scions W.
   G. Bixby's trees             8  75.0
                              ---  ----
                              174  69.5

 Persian Walnuts 4 varieties, scions
   about 2-3 from parent trees, all
   of which were quite vigorous
   growers                                                         46   0.0
 Aiken Butternut, scions W. G.
   Bixby's trees                             39 38.5
 Lancaster Heartnut, scions W. G.
   Bixby's trees                                         53 3.8

[Footnote 4: One scion was overlooked in tying and waxing, otherwise
apparently we would have had 100% catches.]

       *       *       *       *       *

In the above two groups of hickories the one where scions were cut from
young, rapidly growing trees, contrasts unmistakably with those where
scions were cut from old bearing trees. The same is shown in the table
of black walnut grafts, where the Alley, Adams, and O'Connor scions were
cut from old bearing trees, and the others from young, rapidly growing
trees.

The poor success with the heartnuts is quite in line with previous
attempts at propagating this species by grafting. Results shown here
with the butternut are deemed reasonably satisfactory, in view of the
well known difficulty of grafting this species. It should be noted here
that, in the case of every graft that took and grew, it was the small
buds that were successful, not the large ones. The total lack of success
with the Persian walnut is inexplicable to the writer, but he knows of
no previous attempts to graft Persian walnut on Persian walnut root.

Black walnuts show a very high percentage of catches, in the case of the
Thomas and Ten Eyck varieties 100%, but in the case of the Stabler this
is reduced to 51.2%. I would say in this connection that neither of my
two Stabler trees are vigorous growers, and so the trees grafted with
scions from these are really cases where we have not been using scions
from vigorous growing trees, and we know that this does not give a high
percentage of catches.

The proper species to be used as a stock for the various varieties of
hickories has not been shown conclusively for the number of grafts of
each kind set was too few to be conclusive, and these experiments should
be repeated. In the case of most of these varieties where results are
poor, it was particularly noted when the grafts were set that the scions
were in poor condition, a number of scions being thrown away because the
cambium layer was dead. It is to be hoped that a species will be found
to which will be well adapted the Vest hickory, which the writer
regards, everything considered, as the best hickory that we have.
Seemingly the pecan is the stock that gets the greatest number of
catches; but the difficulty the writer has had in making Vest hickories
on pecan root live, leads him to question as to whether another stock
might not prove better. Another thing disappointing so far is in the
seeming poorness of the mockernut as a stock. Over quite a large section
of the United States the mockernut is the prevailing hickory, and in
that section the mockernut will be most generally available for top
working; moreover it will grow well in sandy soils where the shagbark is
not found. In Petersburg, Va., the writer has seen it seemingly outgrow
the black walnut.

The adaptability of the Barnes hickory on all stocks is notable, for it
is the only one of the 10 fine hickories tested in the 1919 contest, of
which this is true. If these grafts continue to flourish, and especially
if future experiments check the results this year, the Barnes will have
a peculiar value for top working. It is one of our best hickories, and,
apparently is our surest variety for top working.

MR. CLOSE: I would suggest that we extend our thanks to the Smithsonian
Institute for the use of this room for the meeting.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you vote for that? (Motion voted upon favorably). I
believe then, that brings to a close the Fourteenth Annual Convention,
to meet in New York for the Fifteenth Convention in 1924, on September
3,4 and 5.

This meeting is now adjourned.

Time--2:30 p. m.

       *       *       *       *       *

Notes of this convention by Mrs. B. W. Gahn, U. S. Dept. of Agr.,
Washington, D. C.




APPENDIX

Among those present were the following:

   Senator Penney--Saginaw, Michigan.
   B. K. Ogden--3306 19th St., N. W., Washington, D. C.
   W. G. Slappey--12 Boyd Avenue, Takoma Park, D. C.
   S. von Ammon--Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C.
   A. M. Greene--Ridge Road, N. W., Washington, D. C.
   Alfred Heine--Bowie, Md.
   H. Harold Hume--Glen St. Mary, Fla.
   R. H. Hartshorn,--Washington, D. C.
   Wm. S. Linton--Saginaw, Mich.
   W. E. Safford--Botanist, Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C.
   Dr. M. B. Waite--Federal Insecticide and Fungicide Board, Bureau of
     Plant Industry, Washington, D. C.
   Dr. Oswald Schreiner--Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C.
   Karl Wallace Greene--Washington, D. C
   C. A. Reed--Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C.
   Mrs. C. A. Reed--Washington, D. C.
   C. P. Close--Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C.
   Mrs. C. P. Close--Washington, D. C.
   W. R. Mattoon--Forest Service, Washington, D. C.
   Thomas P. Littlepage--Washington, D. C.
   John M. Littlepage--Washington, D. C.
   Eunice M. Obenschain--Hotel Monmouth, Washington, D. C.
   J. M. Richardson--Stormville, N. Y.
   Robert T. Morris--114 E. 54th St., N. Y.
   Dr. Llewellyn Jordan--100 Baltimore Ave., Takoma Park, Md.
   Alfred V. Wall--2305 W. Lanvale St., Baltimore, Md.
   Jacob E. Brown---Elmer, N. J.
   Albert R. Williams--Washington, D. C.
   Mrs. B. W. Gahn--Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.
   James S. McGlennon--Rochester, N. Y.
   Ralph T. Olcott--Rochester, N. Y.
   Zenas H. Ellis--Fair Haven, Vt.
   G. A. Zimmerman, M. D.--Piketown, Pa.
   G. F. Gravatt--Forest Pathology, Bureau of Plant Industry,
     Washington, D. C.
   Willard B. Bixby--Baldwin, N. Y.
   John W. Hershey--Banks, Pa.
   P. H. O'Connor--Bowie, Md.
   John E. Carmoday--Charlottesville, Va.
   Mrs. John Carmoday--Charlottesville, Va.
   Mrs. W. N. Hutt--"The Progressive Farmer," Southern Pines, N. C.
   Ammon P. Fritz--55 E. Franklin St., Ephrata, Pa.
   W. A. Orton--Bureau of Plant Industry, Washington, D. C.
   J. C. Corbett--Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.
   W. G. Pollaret--The Star, Washington, D. C.
   Prof. Lumsden--Federal Horticultural Board, Washington, D. C.




EXHIBITS LISTED

Crops of 1923

   Exhibit of Robt. T. Morris
        1. Hybrid chinkapin (burrs and nuts).
        2. Graft of pear tree (paraffin method).

   Exhibit of C. A. Reed
       "Rush" American Hazel.

   Exhibit of C. P. Close
        1. Seedling filbert.
        2. "Van Fleet" hybrid chinkapin.
        3. "Glady" walnut.

   Exhibit of J. F. Jones
       Persian Walnuts.
            1. Wiltz Mayette.
            2. Meylan.
            3. Lancaster.
            4. Lancaster (Same).
            5. Eureka.
            6. Hall.
       Pecans.
            1. Posey.
            2. Busseron.
            3. Niblack.
       Hazels.
            1.  Rush (Three exhibits).
       Cobnut.
            1.  (No name).
       Filberts.
            1. Fichtendersche.
            2. Daviana.
            3. Blumenberger.
            4. Italian red.
            5. Lambert nut.
            6. Friehe Longe.
            7. Gunzelebenner.
            8. White Aveline.
            9. Grosse Ronde.
           10. Barcellona.
           11. Spanik Gr.
           12. Prolific.
           13. Noce Lunghe.
           14. Du Chilly.
           15. Grant de Halle.
           16. Buttners.
   Exhibit of W. G. Bixby
        1. Lancaster Heartnuts.
        2. Royal Walnuts.
        3. Hall Persian Walnuts.
        4. Rush Persian Walnuts.
   Exhibit of  T. P. Littlepage (Grown on his farm).
        1. Chinkapins.
        2. "O'Connor" walnuts.
        3. Mixture of varieties of European filberts.
        4. Cluster of pecans (Indiana).
        5. Littlepage hazels (which Mr. Littlepage called "American").
        6. Spanish chestnut.