Chapter VI: Part 6

Today, Illinois has over 11,000,000 bearing apple trees, and they raise just as good apples there as any where, but they haven't got the organization, they don't advertise, and we don't know it generally. If we can organize and distribute our information, get these vice presidents from two or three cities to join with the chambers of commerce and have a meeting down at Evansville, among the nut growers, for instance, the growers of Indiana pecans, and see what they grow, and what they are worth, why then you can get the people interested. You must have somebody that is interested in the propagation of a new idea. Don't get somebody who just comes here for a good time without any desire particularly of learning anything. If he doesn't want to learn we don't want him.

THE SECRETARY: I understand that, in view of the very generous offer of the president to get a hundred new members in the ensuing year, and of the pledge of ten other men to get ten more members, or turn in the necessary amount to the treasury, each of us goes forth from the meeting tonight with the understanding that he is morally under obligations to do what the other members have promised to do.

THE PRESIDENT: It would be a nice thing to give a Christmas gift of a membership in this association and a subscription to the American Nut Journal. A great many of us receive Christmas gifts which are appreciated when received, and maybe for a week or ten days, two weeks or a month, and then they're forgotten; but this membership and the American Nut Journal that one would receive every month, would be a constant reminder of the giver. What do you think of that, ladies and gentlemen?

THE SECRETARY: It is a fine idea, Mr. President, and I will see that it is also incorporated in the letters to the state vice president that each vice president give to at least one friend a subscription and membership in the association. I suggest also that those who can write for the magazines and the journals get up little articles for the horticultural papers about nut culture. There can't be too many of those in the periodicals.

THE PRESIDENT: Apropos of that suggestion, I believe Mr. Tucker has something to say in regard to a special edition of the Journal. Maybe Mr. Olcott would be good enough to make one of his--

MR. TUCKER: (Interrupting) To make one of his numbers a convention number.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes; one of the numbers in the near future devoted largely to the proceedings of this convention, that is, if he could see his way clear to do it.

MR. OLCOTT: You mean in the matter of--

THE PRESIDENT: (Interrupting) Of this convention. Sort of make it a northern nut growers issue. It is merely a suggestion, Mr. Olcott.

MR. OLCOTT: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: So that it is practically all about this convention of the Northern Nut Growers Association.

MR. OLCOTT: Yes. Well, it is rather difficult to do that, Mr. President, to the exclusion of all other matter. Is that what you mean? How are we going to take care of the news? It is not a magazine of stories and fiction; it is a magazine of news, and the news of the period between August 15th and September 15th, for instance, will become stale if it is not used in the September 15th issue and runs over until the October 15th issue. It is the American Nut Journal. I think your idea can be carried out very fully by featuring the convention as the main thing, but not to use every last page for it.

MR. TUCKER: No. My idea wasn't to give the whole magazine up to that. But when you got up that magazine, to have the northern nut growers convention stick right out.

MR. OLCOTT: Sure.

THE PRESIDENT: Wasn't it your idea to have some of the pictures, too?

MR. OLCOTT: I see.

MR. TUCKER: Yes; run some of the pictures, and so forth.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Olcott, I am sure, is willing to give that issue just as soon as we can get more members and more money.

MR. OLCOTT: We are carrying the nut journal on its subscription list. There is no advertising to speak of in this pioneer industry. The nut nurserymen do not advertise; they should. People want to know where they can get nuts, butternuts and hickory nuts. The people in the South who grow pecans are doing a commercial business but they don't have to advertise; they can't furnish enough nuts to meet the demand. There is no occasion for them to ask for customers; the customers are flocking to their doors and standing in line. People want to know where to get black walnuts; they write in to me. I don't know where to send them. I don't suppose anybody has enough for his local trade and he doesn't have to advertise; he can sell all he has. There is no advertising to speak of. We are living on subscriptions. Now if you enlarge the Journal, use pictures which run up all the way from six to fifteen dollars apiece, you are soon using up your $1.50 per that is left out of the combination membership.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

MR. OLCOTT: After paying the tremendously high printer rates. A special edition can be gotten out at considerable additional cost. We have done it in the past and come out at the small end and it took several months to get even again. We can do it again for the sake of the association; but I am saying this to show why it is not done oftener.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I understand it. What do you think, then, of a little co-operation on the part of the association in the way of that extra expense for a special edition?

MR. OLCOTT: That's all right. In Mr. Linton's administration I furnished some very large and rather expensive half-tone engravings on the part of the association and they worked in very nicely. I don't know whether the association paid for them or whether he did. I think we divided the cost of them.

MR. BIXBY: I know he did. I have furnished some cuts myself.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I know, Mr. Bixby. You are very liberal.

THE SECRETARY: I suggested also that those who can give talks before their local horticultural societies should do so on the subject of nut culture, and if they wish to go in to it extensively slides could be obtained. I think that I could guarantee to obtain them from the Department of Agriculture for illustrated lectures. I have also another question which I would like to put before the association, and that is if we cannot use in some way our surplus back reports to gain new memberships. We have never been able to work out any method of doing so. We have printed each year an edition of a thousand numbers of the annual report. We send out two hundred and fifty or three hundred; consequently, we have about seven hundred annual reports accumulating on our hands every year. Now, what good are they going to be? Can't we use those in some way to increase our membership? Can't we use those as premiums, distribute them gratis some way or other, or distribute them for a small sum to educational institutions, newspapers and agricultural journals? Can't we do something with that annual surplus of about seven hundred nut reports to increase our membership?

MR. TUCKER: Why is there a thousand of them printed?

THE SECRETARY: Because you can get a thousand for just about the same price that you get five hundred, or a very little more.

MR. O'CONNOR: Mr. President, why couldn't some of those be sent to the different experiment stations; also to some of our libraries? We have a number of experiment stations that don't see anything of this kind and that don't know that such a thing exists as the Northern Nut Growers Association. It is only recently that within the state of Minnesota they knew there was such a thing. I have offered a prize in that state for nut culture work. This winter I am going to speak at the Maryland Horticultural meeting, which will be held in Baltimore, and wherever I can get a chance at any of those meetings I always put in a word for the nut. Over on the eastern shore of Maryland, I went into one of the largest apple orchards and nurseries, I believe, in the United States. There were a few northern pecans growing in the yard, and when I asked one of the young men what kind of pecans they were, he said, "Well, I don't know whether it is Indiana or just what it is; but I know it is a pecan." That was growing very beautifully right under the window, you might say, of their dwelling house. That was over at Berlin, at Mr. Harrison's. He likes to sell to nut tree owners, and yet has he come to his year's meeting? Is he a member of the association? For that reason I don't feel like helping him to sell a tree as long as he is not a member. But every chance I get I will put in a good word for the nut tree firm.

I think by sending out our literature to different magazines, to the different experiment stations and over into Canada we would be greatly benefited. We have got some good friends to the north of us. Why not send them some copies and have them help spread this good thing along?

THE SECRETARY: I would like to have Mr. Bixby state about the distribution of those reports outside of the membership. Is there any gratis distribution now?

MR. BIXBY: No, there isn't. There used to be and I made every one of them who received them gratis buy them of me.

THE SECRETARY: About how many institutions now buy the journal?

MR. BIXBY: I should say about half a dozen. That's the same number that had them free before. In nearly every instance when they would write in and request it I would tell them how the association was doing work the Department of Agriculture ought to do, supporting itself with great difficulty, and we would be glad to have them as a member; that if not a member we would furnish a report for so much. In nearly every case we got them as members or they bought the report. As I said before I don't believe in giving things away; I believe in trying to get the people to see the advantage of buying them.

THE SECRETARY: It would be quite an expense to send out all the back numbers of the reports.

MR. BIXBY: I don't think they would appreciate them either. Although I have not been able to do it the most practicable thing to do seems to me to make an index, say of the first ten and bind them up in a booklet and then I think you could sell them. I hope to do this some time.

MR. TUCKER: What is the expense of mailing?

MR. BIXBY: I think it is about eight cents.

THE SECRETARY: It would be considerable labor, but I think it might be best to circularize different experiment stations, horticultural societies, etc., and ask them if they wouldn't like to have in their libraries a complete file of the reports of the Northern Nut Growers Association which can be obtained for a certain small number of dollars.

THE PRESIDENT: Professor Neilson, what would your attitude be toward a communication you would receive of that nature? Supposing that you were not the enthusiastic member that you are of our association?

PROFESSOR NEILSON: I believe it would be favorable. I believe that is general, and judging from the interest shown in our province I believe that a good many of those horticultural societies and other organizations would be glad to have the reports on file; they would be glad to purchase them at whatever figure was set upon them, if it were a reasonable figure. And I think that I could interest several of our agricultural representatives in having these on file in their office, and possibly in subscribing, or getting the departments of agriculture to subscribe to the northern nut growers journal. There are several county offices along the northern shore of Lake Ontario and in those counties nuts are produced. I think their representatives might be induced to persuade the department to subscribe to your journal.

PROFESSOR TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman: I want to speak on the suggestion made by Mr. Bixby. I may illustrate it in this way: we people in California are, of course, in a little different situation from those represented by the Northern Nut Growers Association. Over there west of the Rockies, or west of the Sierra Nevadas, we have an entirely different situation. By virtue of our peculiar climatic conditions we have already gone through our experimental period and we now have nuts that we are growing on a commercial basis just as they have in the South.

For several years I was connected with the University of California and I used to have to teach students, among other things, the various nuts. That was my particular line, the various nuts, especially those adaptable to California, but also along with that the nuts of the United States and the nuts of North America. I believe that Mr. Bixby will bear me out when I say that it was during my time that all of the back reports of the Northern Nut Growers Association were ordered. That was prior to 1919, was it not?

MR. BIXBY: Yes.

PROFESSOR TAYLOR: It was prior to 1919 that all the back numbers were ordered, and I hope they are still taking them.

MR. BIXBY: They are. They get them every two years.

PROFESSOR TAYLOR: They ought to and if they are not I will see that they do. But I found this difficulty, that there will very shortly be thirteen numbers and if it comes to a question of looking something up, we will find that the average man will not be enthusiastically interested because he won't know how quickly he can get at just exactly what he wants. Mr. Bixby suggested that ten of these volumes be taken together and indexed as a unit. That is one of the finest things that you can possibly ask for. I think the institutions will buy them in a way that they do not now because then they will not have to look through ten volumes to find a little idea they want.

I know it is an expensive proposition to index things of that kind; it takes time and a lot of patience. Not only that but it must be done by some one whose heart is in the work and who recognizes the problems that the man who is going to use that index is going to look up. But I do think that if it could be put in to a combined volume, and some sort of an effort made by the various vice presidents in the different sections to see the institutions in their own sections who would be interested, that something might be accomplished which would be of real worth. I believe this would be increasingly so in the future, because those people will want to look back ten, fifteen, twenty years, and see what the others went through. One of the biggest things that I think I did in our classes was to point out the problems that occurred in California ten, fifteen, twenty-five and thirty years ago, along the line of nut culture solely, and then point out where the nut growers succeeded.

And if I may just branch off here to one of the things I haven't spoken about before this evening, I am absolutely against planting seedling trees unless there is a very strong emphasis laid on the fact that they are not for commercial purposes and not for planting in orchards, but are simply and solely for the possibility of developing new varieties. I think that growers are going to want to go back over old reports in order to save covering the same ground twice. We have found our new people in California starting right in where people started fifty years ago because they didn't know what happened fifty years ago, because our reports out there were not properly indexed.

MR. WEBER: Mr. President, in order to bring the matter to a head, I move that the distribution of the old reports, by sale or otherwise, be left to the discretion of the executive committee.

(Seconded and carried.)

MR. OLCOTT: Mr. President, I would like to ask what the condition of the treasury is. I do so for this reason, that we have planned out a good deal to be done during the interim, from now to the next convention, and the secretary's office ought to be busy. We are planning upon making it so to keep up interest.

I think that the secretary shouldn't be handicapped by lack of funds for stationery and things of that kind. I think that with a deficit maybe he has been. Maybe more matter would go out if he had funds and to that end I am putting in my check for $20 for my subscription tonight in advance. If others will do that he will have funds to work with. (Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: In a discussion I had with the treasurer and the secretary before this evening's session we considered that point, Mr. Olcott, and I thought that we would go after the remaining deficit tonight and make it up, start off with a clean sheet. Mr. Bixby said that if we were going to enter into this new membership campaign in a really generous spirit, he felt that the matter of the remaining deficit should be taken care of.

MR. BIXBY: If we can get two hundred new members this year that will take care of it.

THE PRESIDENT: Two hundred are already pledged.

MR. BIXBY: If we get them that will take care of it.

MR. OLCOTT: It will take to the end of the year to get the returns.

MR. WEBER: I will send my check when I get home, because I don't want to go in to my pocketbook now.

THE PRESIDENT: What was the deficit, Mr. Bixby?

MR. BIXBY: The deficit was $176. There was pledged yesterday, $75, and there has been $10 more today. That's $85 of the $176. Then there is $20 of Mr. Olcott's. That would make it $105. Mr. Weber, when he gets home, will make it $125. We will clean it up one way or another.

THE SECRETARY: I think we should proceed now to the report of the nominating committee and the selection of the next place of meeting.

THE PRESIDENT: The hour is growing late and there is just one message I want to give you here. While it may savour some what of advertising our filbert enterprise, it was not with that idea in mind that we proceeded to get the information we have got. Our filberts have been distributed through the L. W. Hall Company, nurserymen of this city, who have exclusive sale of them at this time. They have been distributed during the past three years over a considerable area: Illinois, Idaho, Iowa, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware, New York, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Georgia, District of Columbia, Pennsylvania and Kansas.

Some little time ago I conferred with Mr. Hall in regard to communicating with his customers to whom he had delivered filbert plants, the first in the spring of 1919. He has written them asking them how the plants have done, and particularly with regard to fruit bearing. I have the replies here and the gist of them is this: that the plants have done finely, have been entirely satisfactory in that respect. There has been a complaint that they have not borne; there are some instances of extreme pleasure expressed over the way they have borne. My own idea is, and I believe it is that of Mr. Vollertsen also, that they have not had quite time enough yet, since the spring of 1919.

MR. BIXEY: That is not time enough.

THE PRESIDENT: Furthermore, Mr. Hall, in offering them--against our advice as we endeavored to persuade him to offer them as improved European filberts, assorted varieties--thought that the people would be attracted to those unpronounceable names that we have them under. Maybe they were. He listed some six or eight varieties, I think, and those varieties were of our larger fruited kinds. We frankly confess that those varieties will not bear as abundantly as the smaller fruited varieties--not that they are very small they are quite a good sized nut. I believe if Mr. Hall had made a freer distribution of the so-called smaller fruited varieties that there might have been an even more favorable report in connection with fruiting. Another year or so will give us more definite information.

We have now cleaned up our program pretty well. You are going to find Doctor Kellogg's paper in the report, together with the secretary's. We have the papers here. That completes the program up to the present time with the exception of Senator Penny and Mr. Linton. We supposed Mr. Linton would be here. I had telephoned this morning as Mr. Penny promised to send a paper but he hasn't been able to do so. Those are the only two papers of the program that we haven't got.

There are two more things we have to take care of; one is the election of officers, and the other is the selection of a place for the next convention. I call for the report of the nominating committee.

MR. WEBER: The report of the nominating committee is as follows:

_President:_--JAMES S. MCGLENNON.
_Vice President:_--J. F. JONES.
_Secretary:_--WILLIAM C. DEMING.
_Treasurer:_--WILLARD G. BIXBY.

(Signed)

ROBERT T. MORRIS,
G. H. CORSAN,
HARRY R. WEBER,

Nominating Committee.

MR. O'CONNOR: I move the nominations be accepted.

THE PRESIDENT: Just one moment. Up to this evening I understood that the president was to be elected for a year. I do not know much about the condition prior to President Linton. He was elected at Battle Creek at the same time I was elected vice president. There were extenuating circumstances justifying the re-election of President Linton. I feel that similar conditions do not prevail justifying my re-election as president of this association. It is not going to make any difference to me whether I am president or just simply a soldier in the ranks. I want to see this association the success it ought to be and I feel, in view of the wonderful work that has been done in this association and for its best interests at all times by Mr. Jones, that it is due him that the presidency should be passed to him at this time. He is going to the next convention of the National Association of Nurserymen, he and Doctor Morris, Mr. Olcott and Mr. Weber, to get before that convention of nurserymen something more of the history of this association and its ambitions and desires. I know he could appear before that convention in a much more advantageous way for the benefit of this association if he were president of it. I feel that Mr. Jones ought to be elected president of this association here tonight.

MR. OLCOTT: Mr. President, the presidents of this association have been elected for two years and I think it has become an established custom.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Bixby referred to that tonight. I didn't understand it that way. I supposed I was elected last year at Lancaster for one year.

MR. O'CONNOR: Mr. President, I took that matter up with Mr. Littlepage and he told me it was customary to elect the president for one year at a time and to re-elect him for the second year if he proved all right. So far I think every member of this association has been well satisfied with the service you have given us and we want you to continue on for another year.

THE PRESIDENT: Pat, I thought you were my friend.

MR. SPENCER: I move the secretary cast the ballot of the association in favor of the officers nominated by the committee on nominations.

MR. O'CONNOR: I second the motion.

(Upon the motion being put to a vote of the members, it was declared duly CARRIED, the secretary cast one ballot for the persons nominated, and they were declared duly elected.)

THE PRESIDENT: All right, ladies and gentlemen. Here we are with our coats off and sleeves rolled up for another year; but I want to give you all fair warning that if we don't have that thousand memberships at that next convention, this child is going to drop out. (Laughter.)

The next in the order of business is the selection of a place for the next convention. You heard the telegram this morning from Mr. Littlepage and the telegram from the Washington Chamber of Commerce. Personally, I would like to have you come to Rochester again because we sure enough have enjoyed the sessions with you all here this time. There is no finer city in the world than Rochester, N. Y., and we would like to have you come back here. I want you to come here.

MR. O'CONNOR: Mr. President, I feel it is quite an honor that we are asked to the capital city of the United States to hold our meeting. It shows we were appreciated there some few years ago. I move you we have the next meeting in Washington.

MR. OLCOTT: I second the motion.

(The motion being duly put to a vote of the members, it was carried.)

THE SECRETARY: Now, Mr. President, we should decide upon a date.

THE PRESIDENT: I think that is true. In Lancaster, last year, it was held later than this. I believe the ordinary time has been considerably later than this, about a month.

MR. O'CONNOR: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Littlepage asked me to say, after the convention city had been selected, that it would be best to make it about the last week in September as that would show the pecans and walnuts at about the right time.

MR. BIXBY: I move that the time of the next convention be fixed at September 26th, 27th and 28th, 1923.

MR. O'CONNOR: I second the motion.

(The motion being put to a vote of the members, it was declared CARRIED.)

There being no further business to come before the Convention, it thereupon adjourned.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE TREE PLANTING CEREMONIES AT HIGHLAND PARK, ROCHESTER, N. Y.

_September 9th, 1922, 11 A. M._

PRESIDENT MCGLENNON: This occasion represents the custom of the association of planting a nut tree in one of the parks of the community, in which the annual convention is held. We had expected to have some black walnut seedlings grown from nuts presented to ex-President Linton by the superintendent at Mount Vernon, Washington's old home. I am not sure but I have quite a vivid remembrance that the trees from which these nuts were gathered were fruiting in Washington's time. However it would be a very delightful time if we could have such trees to plant in memory of that great character. But I am sorry to say that we have been disappointed in not receiving the trees from Mr. Linton. He expressed them from Saginaw the day before yesterday and we have made diligent effort to locate them in this city this morning but have been unable to get any trace of them. Anticipating such a happening Mrs. Ellwanger, who had on exhibition at the convention some Persian walnuts grown in pots, at our request very kindly consented to let us use one of those trees. If we had had a little more time to consider it undoubtedly Mr. Dunbar would have arranged to have this tree planted on the land that was given to the city by George Ellwanger, Mrs. Ellwanger's father-in-law, and Patrick Barry of the world famed nursery of Ellwanger & Barry. We are going to plant one of these Persian walnut trees here (the planting is now going on) and there is a greater likelihood that this tree will live than the black walnut, as that tree had to be dug and transported. We feel reasonably sure that this tree will live to commemorate our meeting in Rochester this year.

We are also going to plant an Arkansas hickory, that Mr. Dunbar has had dug from the park nursery, a short distance from where the walnut is planted. I think this, too, is an appropriate tree to plant because of the success of the hickory in this community. Mr. Dunbar tells me that practically all of the varieties of hickory of North America are planted on this park slope. We took great pleasure in driving through here the other day and listening to an explanation of their history by Mr. Dunbar.

We are honored today by the presence of the Dean of the New York State School of Forestry, Dean Mann, who has consented to address us. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Dean Mann.

DEAN MANN: President McGlennon, ladies and gentlemen:

I assure you it gives me great pleasure to be here because as a forester and tree lover by profession I am also a tree lover by nature. I can conceive of no more worthy, more beautiful nor attractive memorial than a tree dedicated to the Father of our Country, something which will grow in size, in beauty and in productivity as the years roll by. As foresters would remind you, ladies and gentlemen, the Father of our Country served his apprenticeship long before he became a land owner and patriarch on those broad Virginia acres. The Father of our Country started out in life as a forester and surveyor. You may remember that he piloted, or was to be one of the pilots of Braddock's expedition, having gained his knowledge of the woods through his early life as a young surveyor in the forests of Virginia.

There are in New York state approximately fourteen million acres better suited to tree crop production than to field crop production. Here in the northeastern corner of the United States, where our great centers of population are found, we have in the state of Maine seventy per cent suited to tree crop production but unsuited to tillage; we have similar conditions in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Throughout this northeastern section of the country we have a tree soil domain which will grow trees and which can't be plowed with profit. All who are interested in the production of trees for whatever purpose should realize that this nation cannot permanently prosper unless every acre of its land is put to its best permanent use.

I think that you will agree with me that it requires no prophetic eye to see the day not far distant when we will have, stretching from the Island of Manhattan up to where Albany now stands, one vast series of teeming cities with suburb touching suburb. The problem then will be how to feed this multitude. Developments in Russia show that, no matter how idealistic one's theory of government may be, food, in the last analysis, is the thing which makes or breaks a nation.

Those of you who have studied some of the interpreters of early Scripture will remember, perhaps, that the Garden of Eden was in reality an oasis of trees in the great valley of Mesopotamia, and even today "garden" in the oriental term means a group of trees. It has been proven by experience in these different tropical realms that where tree production is biggest and nuts and other products are grown under intensive cultivation, an acre will produce more food than where grazing is practiced. I spent a very pleasant year in California and saw some of the operations of the California nut growers, where they are growing English walnuts on a most extensive scale. I believe I will be making no false statement when I say that those areas in southern California which are growing nuts produce more in fats, proteins and calories for the maintenance of the health and strength of the human race than do the acres which are given up to the growing of animal crops.

So I applaud the idea of planting a tree in the memory of the Father of his Country. I believe I belong to your group, at least through interest, because I have been doing a little experimenting of my own in my back yard at Syracuse where I have an English walnut which I planted in 1915 which is this year producing for the first time. I am going to take those nuts and see what can be done with them in perpetuating that particular variety, because it is hardy, fast growing, and early to mature.

The New York State College of Forestry has a platform as broad as the entire state. We are interested in every kind of land which is not suited to agriculture, fish, game, recreation, conservation of water, and I pledge to you the sympathy and the support of the New York State College of Forestry. We have three experiment stations; one in Oneida county, one in Onandaga county, and another in Cattaraugus, with a fourth in St. Lawrence, if you wish to call it such. We would be delighted to receive from you any slip or any sort of fruit which you wish us to try out at these experiment stations. I believe that the time will come when some combined system of forestry and horticulture can be maintained which will aim at the production of food stuffs from trees, with lumber, perhaps, as a by-product. That works out in the old country and the day is not far off when it can be practiced here.

I congratulate the members of this association on having completed what was, from all accounts, a most successful meeting. I regret that I couldn't have been here earlier and met the other members of your body. I congratulate you; I wish you God speed, and I again tender the support of the College of Forestry.

* * * * *

PRESIDENT MCGLENNON: We certainly have received great encouragement from Dean Mann's remarks, which to me, and I believe to all present, were most interesting and instructive.

I want to hear just a few words from our esteemed friend, Mr. John Dunbar, Assistant Superintendent of Parks.

MR. DUNBAR: I think it is a very happy and fortunate circumstance that Mr. Mann is here this morning representing the College of Forestry of Syracuse. Every word that Mr. Mann has said is absolutely true. The forestry question of this country is indeed a very serious question. Every man, and every woman, should give most serious thought to it, and I hope the words Dean Mann has spoken to us here this morning will go in to all our hearts very deeply.

Of course the Park Department is studying trees from the ornamental and arboricultural point of view. We think, however, that arboriculture, horticulture and forestry, as the Dean said, are very, very closely allied and should surely work together. I think his idea is a very excellent one; that there should be a very close connection or union between forestry, horticulture, nut culture, and all kinds of fruit culture. I hope that day is not far distant.

PRESIDENT MCGLENNON: Ladies and gentlemen, the treasurer of our association is a man who is intensely interested in nut culture. He has done wonderful things for its advancement and especially for the advancement of the interests of the Northern Nut Growers Association.

MR. BIXBY: While Dean Mann was speaking the thought came to me, how could we better co-operate with the Department of Forestry? I think the work of the Nut Growers Association, which is particularly interested in the use of nut trees for orchards, and that of the Department of Forestry, which looks upon them particularly as producers of timber, could be very closely allied. The thought came to me, could not we right here work out some practical suggestion whereby we two could co-operate? I would like to ask Dean Mann what nut trees they are planting for forest purposes.

DEAN MANN: We have done very little. We have, at our experiment station at Chittenango, done some work with the English walnuts. This particularly hardy specimen that I have in my own back yard--I have two, one of them is growing very slowly--are from our experiment station. We have really had so much to do in the way of popular education in New York State in the timber products, that we are merely, as they say in the South, fixing to begin with other things. That is the only species with which we have made an actual start. There is this however: what can foresters, horticulturists and nut enthusiasts do to supply the place of the American chestnut? I really came here as a seeker after truth on this particular phase. You men probably know more about it than I. What can we produce? Is there any hybrid which can be introduced into this country which will take the place of the American chestnut?

MR. BIXBY: In reply to that I would say that I have hundreds of seedlings of the Chinese chestnut on which the blight has been working for years and has not destroyed them. I would be very glad to send them to the College of Forestry and let you try them.

DEAN MANN: They will be planted with extreme care and a barbed wire put around them.

MR. BIXBY: There is another thing, the rough shell Japanese walnut, so-called, which is really a butternut hybrid. I have planted it and it is growing at a tremendous rate, even faster than the Japanese walnut. I expect to get a lot of those nuts this year and I wondered how the College of Forestry would like to try some of them.

DEAN MANN: I would be delighted.

MR. BIXBY: Then there is one other nut the big shell bark hickory which is a native of the Mississippi Valley, which has been planted in Pennsylvania and up in Lockport, New York. It grows finely, it bears early, and I think that it might be worth trying.

DEAN MANN: We have adopted this platform: "Anything which will interest the people of New York State." We must, as a state institution, limit our horizon very largely to the state of New York. We do slip over occasionally, but anything which will interest the people of New York State in trees of any kind, for any purpose, is a step towards forest conservation. Take your city dweller in New York City, get him interested in a shade tree in front of his apartment house, or in a group of shade trees in the adjoining park, and you have converted that man along the line of King Forest. So we will be very glad to take any seeds you have and give them excellent care.

NUTS THE NATURAL AND ADEQUATE SOURCE OF PROTEIN AND FATS

_By_

JOHN HARVEY KELLOGG, M. D., F. A. C. S.,

_Medical Director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium_

In the writer's opinion, the most important thing which can be done to promote the nut growing industry is to make clear to men and women everywhere the necessity for returning to natural and biologic living. Since he left his primitive state, in his wanderings up and down the face of the earth to escape destruction by terrific terrestrial convulsions and cataclysmic changes in climate and temperatures, chilled during long glacial periods, parched and blistered by tropic heats, starved and wasted by drouth and famine, man has been driven by ages of hardships and emergencies to adopt every imaginable expedient to survive immediate destruction, and in so doing has acquired so great a number of unnatural tastes, appetites and habits, perversions and abnormalities in customs and modes of life, that it is the marvel of marvels that he still survives.

Man no longer seeks his food among the natural products of field and forest and prepares it at his own hearthstone, but finds it ready to eat, prepared in immense factories, slaughter-houses, mills, and bakeries and displayed in palatial emporiums. No longer led by a natural instinct, as were his remote forebears, in the selection of his foodstuffs, he finds his dietetic guidance in the advertising columns of the morning paper, and eats not what Nature prepared for his sustenance, but what his grocer, his butcher and his baker find most for their pecuniary interest to purvey to him. The average man no longer himself plants and tills and harvests the foods which enter into his bill of fare, that is, "earns his bread by the sweat of his brow," but accepts whatever is passed on to him by a long line of producers and purveyors who do his sweating for him, depriving him of the opportunity of earning both appetite and good digestion by honest toil. So he resorts to condiments and ragouts, palate-tickling and tongue-tickling sauces and nerve-rousing stimulants, as a means of securing the unearned felicity of gustatory enjoyment.

At the World's Eugenics Congress held in New York last fall, Professor Davenport expressed the opinion that the human race will ultimately perish, and Major Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, one of the world's leading economists, gave expression to similar views. We are evidently traveling a downhill road and the tide of degeneracy is rising so fast it will certainly sweep us on to race extinction unless we return to sane and biologic living. We are primates, not carnivores like the dog, nor omnivores like the hog. The primates are fruit and nut eaters in whatever part of the world they are found. All the primates adhere to the family bill of fare. The gorilla, reigning king of beasts in the forests of the Congo, his somewhat lesser relative, the chimpanzee, which tenants a wide area of the Dark Continent, the orang-utan of Borneo, and the gibbon of tropical Asia, diversified as they are in form and habitat, are all equally circumspect in their adherence to the diet of nuts and fruits, tender shoots and soft grains, foods which Nature has prescribed as the primate's bill of fare.

A return to natural eating would doubtless do, to say the least, as much as any one thing toward checking the downward race movement, and no one who has ever studied the economics of diet will question that the only way in which the earth's dense populations of the future can be fed will be by the elimination of the flesh-pots and a resumption of the natural dietary. This is clear when we recall the fact that the Agricultural Experiment Stations have demonstrated that 33 pounds of digestible foodstuffs are required to make one pound of beef. When an animal is fattened, the creature uses a large part of the food which it consumes for its own purposes. The eater of flesh does not get back the original corn and other foods given to the animal but only a small fraction of it; and hence dense populations can only indulge in beef eating by importing meats from other countries not yet fully occupied. Evidently, the present rapid increase of the earth's population will soon bring us to a point where this enormous waste must cease. Flesh eating will have to be abandoned for economic reasons. Even the milk supply will necessarily be limited, for we are compelled to feed the cow 5 pounds of digestible foodstuffs to obtain 1 pound of water-free food in the form of milk.

Those pessimistic economists who predict that by the year 2000 the American Continent will be so densely populated that means will have to be adopted to limit the increase of population because of the scarcity of foodstuffs, are evidently not aware of the activities of the Nut Growers Association and of the marvelous efficiency of nut trees as producers of protein and fats, the two elements of our foodstuffs which are most costly because hardest to produce.

I am creditably informed that one acre of land supporting 35 black walnut trees in full bearing, will produce not less than 350 pounds of walnut meats, each pound of which has a nutritive value in protein and fats fully four times that of an equal weight of beef or an equivalent of 1400 pounds of meat. To produce a steer weighing 1600 pounds, requires two acres and two years. Two acres and two years will produce 1400 pounds of nut meats, the equivalent of 5600 pounds of beef or more than 9 times the amount of nutritive material in the form of protein and fat produced by beef raising.

Of course, the question might be raised whether nuts as a source of food are equal in value to meats, which supply the same sort of food material, namely, protein and fats. If the anthropologists are right, this is a question which need not worry us, for, according to Professor Keith, the eminent English anatomist and a leading paleontologist, and Professor Elliot, of Oxford, nuts were the chief staple of our hardy ancestors of prehistoric times. Professor Elliot, indeed, tells us in his work, "Prehistoric Man," that the first representatives of the human race who appeared in the Eocene Period were fruit and nut eaters, and were abundantly supplied with this sort of nutriment. This eminent author says,--

"On the bushes by the rivers and along the shore there were all sorts of fruits and nuts. For the subsistence of our lemur-monkey-man in the early stages of evolution, what fruits would seem _a priori_ most suitable?

"I think that one would select the banana and bread-fruit. Ancestral forms of both were flourishing in the Eocene. Many other fruits with which man has been afterwards continually (perhaps one might venture to say _most intimately_) associated, occur at this period. These are, most of them, found in so many places that one is apt to think they were then of world-wide distribution.

"In the temperate brushwood and on the river-sides, acorns, hazel-nut, hawthorne, sloe, cherry and plum might be found. Here and there, he might alight upon a walnut or an almond; figs also of one kind or another seem to have been common. Palm trees existed, and some of them were of enormous size."

If, in modern times, nuts have come to be used as a luxury rather than as a staple article of diet, it must be because we have neglected to cultivate this choicest of food products which Nature is ready to provide with a lavish hand when invited to do so by our co-operation. But as the public become better informed respecting the high food value of nuts and especially in view of the steadily rising cost of flesh meats, the nut is certain to gain higher appreciation, and the writer has no doubt that some time in the future nuts will become a leading constituent of the national bill of fare and will displace the flesh meats which today are held in high esteem but which in the broader light of the next century will be regarded as objectionable and inferior foods, and will give place to the products of the various varieties of nut trees which will be recognized as the choicest of all foods.

In nutritive value the nut far exceeds all other food substances; for example, the average number of food units per pound furnished by half a dozen of the more common varieties of nuts is 3231 calories while the average of the same number of varieties of cereals is 1654 calories, half the value of nuts. The average food value of the best vegetables is 300 calories per pound and of the best fresh fruits grown in this country, 278 calories. The average value of the six principal flesh foods is 810 calories per pound or one-fourth that of nuts.

Recent studies of the proteins of nuts by Osborne and Harris, Van Slyke, Johns and Cajori, have demonstrated that the proteins of nuts are at least equal to those of meat. This has been shown to be true of the almond, English walnut, black walnut, butternut, peanut, pecan, filbert, Brazil nut, pine nut, chestnut, hickory and cocoanut; that is, of practically all the nuts in common use.

Observations seem to show that, in general, the proteins of oily seeds are complete proteins.

Cajori's research has also shown the presence of growth-promoting vitamins in abundant quantity in the almond, English walnut, filbert, pine nut, hickory, chestnut and pecan.

That the nut is appreciated as a dainty is attested by the frequency with which it appears as a dessert and the extensive use of various nuts as confections. That nuts do not hold a more prominent place in the national bill of fare as food staples is due chiefly to two causes; first, the popular idea that nuts are highly indigestible, and second, the limited supply.

The notion that nuts are difficult of digestion has really no foundation in fact. The idea is probably the natural outgrowth of the custom of eating nuts at the close of a meal when an abundance, more likely a super-abundance, of highly nutritious foods has already been eaten and the equally injurious custom of eating nuts between meals.

Neglect of thorough mastication must also be mentioned as a common cause of indigestion following the use of nuts. Nuts are generally eaten dry and have a firm hard flesh which requires thorough use of the organs of mastication to prepare them for the action of the several digestive juices. It has been experimentally shown that nuts are not well digested unless reduced to a smooth paste in the mouth. Particles of nuts the size of small seeds may escape digestion. Nut paste or "butter" is easily digestible.

Delicious nut butters may be prepared from true nuts such as the almond, filbert and pine-nut, by blanching and crushing, without roasting. Peanuts require steam roasting. Over-roasting renders the nut difficult of digestion.

More than 50,000 tons of nut butters are produced in England every year. Peanut oil, palm kernel oil and coconut oil are the principal raw materials used. In face of vanishing meat supplies, it is most comforting to know that meats of all sorts may be safely replaced by nuts not only without loss, but with a decided gain. Nuts have several advantages over flesh foods which are well worth considering.

1. Nuts are free from waste products, uric acid, urea, and other tissue wastes which abound in meats.

2. Nuts are aseptic, free from putrefactive bacteria, and do not readily undergo decay either in the body or outside of it. Meats, on the other hand as found in the markets, are practically always in an advanced stage of putrefaction. Ordinary fresh, dried or salted meats contain from three million to ten times that number of bacteria per ounce, and such meats as Hamburger steak often contain more than a billion putrefactive organisms to the ounce. Nuts are clean and sterile.

3. Nuts are free from trichinae, tapeworm, and other parasites, as well as other infections due to specific organisms. Nuts are in good health when gathered and usually remain so until eaten.

In view of these facts, it is most interesting to know that in nuts, the most neglected of all well known food products, we find the assurance of an ample and complete food supply for all future time, even though necessity should compel the total abandonment of our present forms of animal industry.

Another of the great advantages of the nut is that with few exceptions, it may be eaten direct from the hand of nature without culinary preparation of any sort. Indeed, the common custom of offering nuts as dessert is an acknowledgment that in the nut the refined chemistry of Nature's laboratory permits of no improvement by the clumsy methods of the kitchen.

Every highway should be lined with trees. Many nut trees will grow on land unsuited to ordinary farm crops. The pinon flourishes on the bleak and barren peaks of the Rockies.

A few nut trees planted for each inhabitant would insure the country against any possibility of food shortage. A row of nut trees on each side of our 3,000,000 miles of country roads would provide half enough fat and protein for a population of 100,000,000.

If each one of the 6,000,000 farmers in the United States would plant and maintain an orchard of ten acres of black walnuts, the annual crop, with little or no attention, would yield not less than 3,000,000 tons of nut protein, the equivalent of more than 12,000,000 tons of meat, besides more than 6,000,000 tons of fat of the finest quality, sufficient to supply every one of 100,000,000 people with an ample amount of protein, and, in addition, the fat equivalent of 6-2/3 ounces of butter.