Chapter C: A. REED, Washington, D. C (5)

Whether grafting or budding is the best method of propagation will likely depend upon local conditions. We find in the far South that budding succeeds best in some localities while grafting is best in others. Ultimate results of the two methods in the orchards are equal. In sections where there are native pecans growing in suitable places these should be top worked to the best hardy varieties possible for quick results. The best method to do this work will also depend upon local conditions and seasons. The slip mark method of grafting as early in the spring as the bark will slip, will no doubt be one of the most expeditious, as it is quickly done, and in many sections is very successful, providing the scions are kept perfectly dormant and the waxing and tying are carefully done.

As commercial orcharding is still in the experimental stage in the Northern section of our country it will be well to sound a note of warning to prospective planters that they may avoid some of the mistakes that we in the Southern pecan belt made at one time. Next to the neglect, which some of the planters allowed their orchards to undergo, probably the selection of the wrong kind of land has been the cause of more disappointment than any other one source. A fertile soil deep, mellow, well drained sandy or gravelly clay subsoil should be ideal for pecans anywhere in the latitude in which they are hardy. However, many other types of soil are producing pecans, and if your home happens to be located where the soil is not ideal, you can still grow them by furnishing the elements which nature has failed to provide, if your soil is well drained and free from hard pan. The planting and cultivation, to be sure, must be carefully and thoroughly done to insure success anywhere.

I will say in conclusion that I believe there are wonderful possibilities in Nut Culture in this country of ours. We know it is an established fact that nuts are entered into the dietary of our upwards of one hundred and ten million inhabitants of the United States of America more and more from day to day. We have evidence of this in our importations of nuts, which have increased from year to year until they have nearly reached the enormous value of $57,000,000 for the year 1919 as stated by the American Nut Journal. Then, too, there certainly can be no more fascinating branch of horticulture combined at the same time with financial reward.

Now, let me thank you for your attention and say that I only wish that every one of you might join us in our big meeting of the National Association at Austin, Texas, next week.

* * * * *

MR. FOSTER: A thought occurs to me in connection with Dr. Morris' idea of paraffin for use in warm climates. I happen to know as a patent attorney that in the manufacture of candles in order to give paraffin heat resisting qualities they introduce stearic acid. I have no doubt that it would be just as successfully employed in paraffin for the purpose of grafting. I think in candle making they add something like ten or fifteen per cent to the ordinary paraffin.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I think we are very fortunate to have with us Mr. Bechtel and Mr. Perry from down South who are really in the nut business. The problem before us is varieties. If you want to plant black walnuts what walnut do you want to plant? Just because I happen to say that Stabler is a first-class walnut does not make it so. If you want to plant English walnuts what variety? I said to Dr. Van Dazce a few years ago, "I wish I knew more about that variety." He said: "Don't bother about that. You will be top working them all in a few years." (Applause.) I have found a bigger pecan down in Indiana than the Major. It is a big type and I wish we knew more about it. I wish the Department of Agriculture would make an investigation and find out. What nuts to plant and what soil to plant them on and what varieties to plant it seems to me ought to be the trend of our talk here at these meetings, and I am glad that Mr. Bechtel has taken up that question.

MR. OLCOTT: I think the members of the association would be interested in hearing a brief account from Mr. Bixby of the only commercial nut planting proposition in the North at present,--a very successful one. He has visited it within a week and I think he could tell us what varieties they have planted.

THE SECRETARY: About a week ago I was at Alton, Illinois, at the place of Mr. E. A. Riehl. He has been a pioneer in many things, in fruit culture and what interests us more today in nut culture. He is outside the native chestnut belt and many years ago he planted some native American chestnuts. When the Rochester chestnut came out he planted it and he obtained from the late J. R. Parry of Parry, N. J., his best Japan chestnuts including the Reliance. He also obtained Boone trees from the originator the late Geo. W. Endicott, Villa Ridge, Ill. He has raised many seedling trees from the above varieties and planted a small hillside to them. Out of those he has selected the best and is propagating from them. He has chestnuts there that I wish I might show here, some that are fifty per cent larger than Paragon and with a better flavor. Furthermore they will drop out of the husks so that it is not necessary to pick up an unopened burr and heat it or pound it to get the nuts out. He has now between one and two thousand chestnut trees. Most of his chestnut trees however are seedling trees which do not bear nearly as well as his best trees. The greater part of his trees are in land that has never been cultivated. Many of his trees are not yet in bearing. Some of his trees however are now 25 to 28 feet spread and bearing heavily. He is certain that the yield of his orchard could be greatly increased by top working the poor bearers and that he is doing. Still he told me be obtained not less than 35¢ per pound for any of the crop and for some as high as 40¢ and 50¢ wholesale. In 1920 he produced over 4000 pounds.

In this connection a short history of the Boone tree will be of interest. In the spring of 1895 Mr. Endicott fertilized blossoms of Parry's Japan Giant chestnut with pollen of a native American chestnut and planted the nuts. This cross was made with difficulty for the American and Japan chestnuts do not bloom at the same time and it was several years after he had made up his mind to make the cross before he was able to do it. In the fall of 1897 one of the trees produced six burrs filled with nuts and was named the Boone. Since then it has borne as follows: 1898, 1 lb.; 1899, 3 lbs.; 1900, 5 lbs.; 1901, 6 lbs.; 1902, 8 lbs.; 1903, 12 lbs.; 1904, 17 lbs.; 1905, 25 lbs.; 1906, 31 lbs.; 1907, 43 lbs.; 1908, 50 lbs.; 1909, 56 lbs.; 1910, 5 lbs. (small crop due to hard freeze in April); 1911, 80 lbs.; 1912, 76 lbs.; 1913, 140 lbs.; 1920, 153 lbs. I am not informed as to the crops in 1914 to 1919 inclusive. Two other trees of the same parentage planted at the same time bore 128 lbs. and 168 lbs. respectively in 1920. If we consider that chestnut trees are set 40 feet apart each way, which means 27 trees to the acre, and estimated the crop at a fraction of that borne by the Boone tree we shall still have figures sufficient to show the wonderful possibilities of the chestnut in those sections outside of the native chestnut area of the country where it will succeed.

Mr. Riehl also has black Walnuts. He procured a Thomas black walnut from Joseph W. Thomas & Son, King of Prussia, Pa., fifteen or sixteen years ago. From that original Thomas tree he has top worked a lot of seedling black walnut trees and he has I should think between one and two hundred in bearing at the present time many of them bearing heavy crops. It is very evident that Mr. Riehl has in his chestnuts and in his black walnuts gotten northern nut culture down to the point where it pays. I wanted to get Mr. Olcott to go there on his trip and get some facts from Mr. Riehl to present at this meeting. When I was there I had another mission in mind and I spent the time in getting what I went for. Consequently I did not get all the practical details and results in dollars and cents which we ought to have to demonstrate that it has been a commercial success. But I am satisfied that it is because he is constantly increasing his plantings.

MR. JONES: Two years ago he favored black walnuts.

MR. BECHTEL: What has he done with pecans?

THE SECRETARY: The pecan is native with him but he is probably pretty near its northern limit even though I have found it bearing good crops further north. The pecans I have seen at Alton do not seem to be bearing much. He has one or two northern varieties top worked on native pecans one eight years old and another one five neither one of which is bearing.

MR. BECHTEL: He had a very small choice nut that he prized very highly and sent me some scions to propagate for him I think about 12 or 14 years ago. I grew them on our native stock shipped them to him. I never followed it up to see what results he had. I think probably those roots may have frozen out if he had severe winters.

THE SECRETARY: What he showed me were two of the standard northern varieties, I think Busseron and Indiana, which he had grafted on young trees. In southern Indiana they are doing much better. Grafted varieties are bearing but with Mr. Riehl it is the black walnut and the chestnut with which he is making a success.

THE PRESIDENT: The next speaker has for his subject the southern pecan and how its commercial development came about. He comes from the one state in the Union of which I may be somewhat jealous. It is the only state east of the Mississippi River with a larger area than Michigan. (Applause). I take pleasure in presenting Mr. A. S. Perry, of Cuthbert, Georgia, Secretary of the National Nut Growers' Association.

GEORGIA'S PECAN INDUSTRY

A. S. PERRY, CUTHBERT, GEORGIA

My heart thrills with pride and pleasure as I stand in the Capital City of our great nation and bring greetings to the Northern Nut Growers Association from the fertile fields of the far South.

I am a southerner to the manner born. For six generations my people sleep in Georgia soil and for an hundred years my family have lived in the Albany district the queenliest section of the far south that rests resplendant as a jewel upon the snowy bosom of her royal mother Georgia and as beautiful as a cluster of fragrant flowers that nestles in the girdle of a lovely woman.

My imperial mother Georgia is a land of surpassing loveliness and thus has for ages been the inspiration of poets and painters too.

The southerners dream of beauty is the magnolia and who can tint her roses or paint the morning glory that points its purple bugle towards the sky as though to sound the revelie for a waking world. No prima donna has ever yet entertained the crowned heads of Europe with such music as that divine melody with which the mocking bird greets the coming dawn.

Ours is a land where skies bend blue and all nature seems to smile; where mosses veil the infirmities of decrepit oaks and vines spring unbidden from the ground to hide the scars of grey old walls; where the grape-vine staggers from tree to tree as though drunk with the purple juice of its own luscious fruit; where flowers lie at your plate on a winter's day and the humblest laborer carries in his dusky hand flowers fit to grace a May queen's crown.

As proud as I am of the beauties of Georgia I am prouder still of her material and natural resources. We have a vast undeveloped empire within whose borders there awaits the prospector such potential treasure as would make the fabled wealth of Lydia's ancient king seem but a beggar's trifle, and the consuming ambition of my life is to see these resources developed to the fullest degree and then shall my imperial mother Georgia shine as the brightest star that gleams in Columbia's diadem.

But of all the natural resources of Georgia there are none to be compared to the possibilities in the development of our NATIONAL NUT the Paper Shell Pecan.

The history of the paper shell pecan is but another example that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country," for native Georgians failed to avail themselves of the opportunity at their door and the credit for the development of Georgia's pecan industry belongs to the far sighted men and women of the North. Then why should I not feel grateful to such men and women as you believing as I do that the paper shell pecan industry is destined to lead Dixie out of her industrial bondage and restore her to her rightful place among the sisterhood of states.

"History repeats itself" says the soldier and there is pictured in his mind vision of other Shenandoah Valleys swept by the fiery broom of war and other Atlantas and Savannahs given to the flames on some other Sherman's March to the Sea.

But history has repeated itself; the North has again invaded the South but not with drum and fife and armed hosts and has been met not with shot and shell but with a genuine southern welcome and from this commingling of northern capital and energy with southern soil and sunshine has sprung a new industry of such roseate promise as to almost make the story of Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp fade into insignificance and Dixie's imperial product, the cultivated paper shell pecan makes her bow to the world.

French explorers as early as 1740 left authentic records of pecans in the Mississippi Valley and the many giant pecan trees scattered from Maryland to Texas which the scientists tell us are hundreds of years old seem to indicate that the pecan is a native of America whose origin is lost in prehistoric times.

The earliest financial transaction in pecans that has come to my notice was in 1772 when William Prince of Flushing, New York, sold in England eight pecan trees for ten guineas each. These trees were grown from seed planted by himself.

Prior to 1890 there had been little if any attempt to plant pecans in orchards but about this time a few scattering seedling orchards began to appear.

In October 1902 about thirty owners of small pecan orchards met in Macon, Georgia, and organized the National Nut Growers Association. Of those pioneer growers only three remain today as active members of the Association, Theo. Bechtel, H. C. White, and O. P. Mears.

By this time the art of budding and grafting having become reasonably well known several pecan nurseries came into bearing and orchards of budded trees began to appear and the foundations of a real industry were laid. About this time the nursery crook began to appear and sold thousands of worthless trees but despite this handicap pecan culture continued to spread and shortly thereafter attracted the attention of Prof. John Craig of Cornell who after investigation pronounced it safe sane and profitable. He also made a study of the various sections and decided that the Albany district was the ideal section for profitable pecan culture.

This announcement by Prof. Craig was sufficient to induce northern capitalists to begin developing the Albany district on a commercial scale and several companies entered the field planting many thousand acres to be sold in units. As an evidence of the lack of faith on the part of local land owners let me say that a few weeks ago I read the original contract between one of the pioneer development companies and the gentleman from whom they bought their land. This contract was dated early in 1908 and provided for the sale on time payments of several thousand acres of land closing with the limitation that unless as much us 100 acres of this land were planted in pecans and sold in 1920 the contract was to be null and void. As a matter of fact this company developed and sold about 4500 acres in less than five years. They have long since retired as developers and give their entire time to the care of their immense orchards and the sale of their nuts which annually run around two hundred thousand pounds.

More than one of these pioneer development companies found themselves in financial difficulties due to the fact that they had sold their orchards too cheaply. Pecan growing is expensive, much more so than the average man thinks and the pecan orchards in the Albany district today that do not meet the expectations of their owners are mostly those that suffered for lack of money. Those companies with financial resources and intelligent horticulturists have developed orchards that are a source of perennial pleasure and profit to their owners.

The cultivated paper shell pecan is as superior to the wild seedling as is American gold to Mexico's money. These wild seedlings are small in size artificially colored a bright red and have a sharp, astringent taste and have a commercial value only because they are used to lower the price of mixed nuts.

When the average man hears the word "pecan" be instantly thinks of the bitter red little nut which is ever present in the supply of Christmas goodies but which is religiously culled and fed to the glowing grate. Mr. Average Man never even heard of the southern paper shell pecan. In fact, up to the present time, the demand has far exceeded the supply and but little if any effort has been made to develop new markets. I think it a conservative estimate that not ten per cent of our population have ever tasted a paper shell pecan.

The paper shell pecan is our national nut and its only competition in the markets of the world is the ignorance of the public. Acquaint the public with its merits and there will be a demand for a million times our present supply.

Away with the thought of overproduction. The "avalanch of nuts" is an old wife's fable. Do not talk to us about overproduction, when the food problem is giving the gravest concern to the master minds of the world. With population increasing and food supply diminishing the gaunt specter of famine is creeping closer and closer to the homes of men even in our own favored land.

Hunger knows no armistice. It conquers amid the snowdrifts of the North, where the grand army of Napoleon found its winding sheet. It conquers amid the burning sands of the south where the phalanx of Alexander halted in mutiny. Away with such nonsense as overproduction in discussing this the choicest food product ever given by a gracious God to a hungry world.

The ideas of yesterday do not fit the ideals of today. When conditions shift opinions must be adjusted accordingly and the pioneer growers are about to realize their golden dreams and reap their reward, for their orchards are coming into bearing and yielding tons of beautiful brown nuts for which they find a ready sale at prices ranging from 50 cents to 75 cents per pound and at even higher prices for extra fancy stock.

No doubt many extravagant statements have been made about the pecan industry but why exaggerate when the plain truth staggers the reason? Why draw on the imagination when reputable growers in the Albany District certify to returns to non-resident owners of $300 per acre in a single season.

This is one infant industry that will not cry for a protective tariff. Never will Capitol Hill resound with the eloquent plea of some statesman urging that the southern paper shell pecan industry be protected by a tariff wall.

The paper shell pecan is the horticultural triumph of the ages the gift of a gracious God who no doubt could but never did produce a finer nut and who in his inscrutable wisdom gave a natural monopoly in its culture to the lower cotton belt for no where else on the habitable globe does it reach the perfection attained there.

The Mississippi Valley has been called the cradle of the pecan industry and Georgia its nursery.

Almost all the standard varieties of pecans have come from the lower Mississippi Valley, Jackson county, Miss., perhaps leading the procession as she is the mother of no less than twelve of the standard varieties now fruiting in thousands of orchards making heavy the pockets and light the hearts of as many owners.

Southwest Georgia has monopolized the pecan nursery business. Given Albany, Georgia as a center and scribe a circle with a sixty mile radius and you have inclosed the area from which 90% of all pecan nursery stock has come. This circle includes Monticello, Florida, which probably is entitled to the honor of having grown a greater amount of pecan nursery stock than any other one community.

Texas produces the bulk of the pecan crop well informed men stating that nine-tenths of the pecans come from the Lone Star State. This may be correct but practically all Texas pecans are seedlings and while some are of real merit the bulk of the Texas crop goes to the crackeries.

The pecan belt roughly speaking is the lower cotton belt and includes in a general way the southern part of South Carolina, Georgia, north Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and parts of Texas and Oklahoma. The paper shell pecan grows to perfection in this limited area and nowhere else but all varieties do not thrive alike in the different sections and the growers have long since learned this and have eliminated the cumberers of the ground and replanted with those varieties adapted to that territory.

To successfully develop a pecan orchard requires money, brains and everlasting bull-dog determination for the lean years with all going out and nothing coming in try the patience and test the nerve of the stoutest man. In pecan growing even as in love-making "faint heart ne'er won fair lady."

While the kingdom of the pecan stretches from Charleston to the Rio Grande, the seat of government the capital city is Albany, Georgia, for in the charmed circle known as the Albany district is to be found a greater number of cultivated paper shell pecan trees than in all the world besides. Here it is that abundant northern capital applied to southern soil and sunshine has made the desert to blossom like the rose. Here it is that abandoned farms scarred with gullies and over grown with briar have been touched as with a magic wand and transformed into a veritable fairyland of flower gardens and fertile fields dotted with hundreds of thousands of beautiful pecan trees that lift their majestic heads towards the sky as though proud of their royal lineage. Here it is that the Mexican boll weevil before whose blighting breath our snowy fields of cotton melted over night brought no terror for King Cotton no longer reigns supreme. The king is dead but the people rejoice as the scepter falls from his nerveless hand and a new monarch ascends the throne. Millions of royal banners flutter in the breeze glistening green with promise for the future and hope is high, and the hearts of the people light as they gather to pay homage to the new monarch, Her Imperial Majesty the Paper Shell Pecan.

* * * * *

THE PRESIDENT: We now have arrived at the time when we should go ahead with some of our business work and probably the first thing we should take up is the report of the committee on nominations.

MR. OLCOTT: Your nominating committee regards it as especially fortunate that the association has a board of officers so well equipped as is the one under which the organization has just completed another year. For that reason and also because in a single year officers can scarcely put into effect plans they may have in view, the president especially being of necessity engaged largely in becoming acquainted with the field and the membership; your committee recommends the re-election of the present officers: President, Wm. S. Linton, Michigan; Vice-President, James S. McGlennon, New York; Treasurer, Willard G. Bixby, N. Y.; Secretary, Dr. W. C. Deming, Connecticut, and the executive committee as at present composed.

The Northern Nut Growers Association has reached the stage of advocating strongly the planting of nut trees of the kinds the Association has investigated. Roadside planting appears to offer an immediate field for activity and President Linton's leadership by reason of his special interest and activity in this field is particularly needed during the coming year when through the urging of this and other societies it is expected many states will follow Michigan in the matter of roadside tree planting.

We believe it would be a matter of particular satisfaction to any nominating committee of this association (as it is of this committee) to recommend continuation in office of Treasurer Bixby and Secretary Deming.

(Signed)

RALPH T. OLCOTT
T. P. LITTLEPAGE
ROBERT T. MORRIS
C. A. REED
C. P. CLOSE

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I move the adoption of the report and that the secretary be instructed to cast the entire vote of the association in support of the report of the committee.

MR. JONES: I second the motion.

The motion was carried.

THE PRESIDENT: Ladies and gentlemen. When I started for Washington it was with the determination that another should succeed me as president of the association the one reason being that my time had been so occupied during the past year that it seemed impossible for me to go ahead with the work as it should be done as president of this organization. Now I am going to accept the election which you have so kindly conferred and I am doing it for two reasons. I like the association and the membership of this organization. I feel for the other reason that my work has not been completed and I desire to finish it. Now then you should have your membership doubled. Every last member of the organization should put forth efforts this year towards that end. Here is one plan that I have under way. I asked the faculty of our agricultural college at Lansing if they would undertake to supply me with the names of those who have nut trees in Michigan not the ordinary kind but those producing good nuts and in plenty. I have the names of from fifty to one hundred of those men owning perhaps a thousand good nut trees. I do not believe that there is one of those men but would become a member of this association if the matter were properly presented to him. We have in Michigan 1,500 townships or more. Now we have a way of reaching the supervisors of those townships through some of our departments and we can practically take a census of the nut bearing trees in Michigan so that instead of having from fifty to one hundred names here we should have several hundred. Really 75 per cent of those men should be members of this association. Now what we hope to do this year in Michigan I feel can be done in every other state that is interested in our particular work. I want to ask your co-operation you who live in other states to assist in doing it. Then when we meet a year hence I hope it may be somewhere in the central West. You honored our state last year with the annual meeting. Of course we would like to have you there again. You are welcome. We would be glad to receive you but Michigan has been thus honored and I imagine that it would add to our force in other sections to hold the meeting elsewhere, in Illinois or Iowa or perhaps even a little further west. Some associations are now meeting in Yellowstone Park and if we should go there we would have the states of Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. We should get membership in all of those states. The place of the next meeting I think is very important. Now I think I have plainly stated my position in the matter and I am going to try to serve you another year. I hope that at the end of that year we will have our membership at least doubled. Let us try and treble it. I thank you. (Applause).

The next subject under discussion then will be the place of meeting.

THE SECRETARY: The by-laws say that the place for the next meeting shall be selected by the convention assembled or in the event of failure in that by the executive committee. Sometimes we have done it one way and sometimes the other. The proper thing to do I think is for the advocates of the different localities to now present their attractions.

MR. POMEROY: Our vice-president when he left asked me to suggest Rochester, N. Y. While at Rochester Niagara county is only a short automobile or trolley ride away. In Niagara county are quite a good many walnut trees in bearing.

MR. RUSH: Mr. President, I invite this association to convene next year in Lancaster City, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. We can show you a very prosperous nut nursery and some young bearing walnut trees and Harrisburg and other places of interest. I am satisfied that you can not meet at a more convenient place than Lancaster City. Therefore I extend the association a hearty invitation.

THE SECRETARY: I would like to hear from Mr. Reed as to the attractions of the eastern shore of Maryland.

MR. REED: There are several places, Mr. President, where I wish you might go next year. One of those places is the eastern shore of Maryland. As I told you last year I regard the eastern shore of Maryland as one of the promising places of the whole East for the development of nut orcharding and I find there a great deal of latent interest and a great deal to see. I am a little disappointed that we have not some representatives here at this meeting from the eastern shore. I am sure that if we should decide to go there we would be received with enthusiasm and we would be shown something that would be quite a surprise to most of us.

Then another place that I would like to have considered for some meeting in the near future is the middle West. The Professor of Horticulture in Missouri is a warm personal friend of mine a classmate of mine in college, and he is very enthusiastic about the possibilities of nut culture in that state. He is waiting to be told or shown how to go ahead, and if we were to go out there I am sure he would follow the lead if we set the pace. He would take hold and push the nut industry in that section. In that same neighborhood is the orchard that Mr. Bixby told us about the chestnut orchard of Mr. Riehl of one or two thousand chestnut trees planted on hillsides that have never been plowed and which are giving Mr. Riehl a very lucrative income. Mr. Riehl is 83 years old and is not going to live always. We certainly ought to see that place while he is there. We have no invitation out there and none from the eastern shore and I am always in favor of going where we have an invitation. It would be my feeling in view of the present situation that we accept one of the invitations that have already been given to us.

MR. RUSH: We met once in Lancaster about eight years ago but at that time we had little to show. We had no nut nursery of any consequence at all and no bearing walnut trees at that time. Now we have them in their prime.

DR. MORRIS: I would like very much to go to both places, the ones described by Mr. Pomeroy and by Mr. Rush.

MR. JONES: I would like to say that we were at Rochester three years after Lancaster and I think Lancaster is entitled to it if you take time into consideration. I think Lancaster is entitled to the meeting now.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I move that we accept the invitation of Mr. Rush and Mr. Jones to meet in Lancaster, Pennsylvania next year. I am going to couple with that another motion which you can consider if you desire and that is that we fix the time of meeting. I think that rather important. I think there are many reasons for it. These meetings are attended by many people who must know as far in advance as possible. Quite a good many people take touring trips over the United States and if they know when these meetings are going to be held they would be very glad to time themselves to be at that point at that particular time. For example a few years ago when we had a meeting here Mr. Groner toured here from Oregon and timed his trip to be here. Later he timed his trip to be at the national meeting at Mobile, Alabama. It is very important because we all take vacations and we have to make our vacation arrangements in advance. It seems to me that the time would be fixed now instead of letting it lie over and finally select the wrong time. I therefore move that we accept the invitation of the gentlemen from Lancaster and then that we fix the time.

PROF. CLOSE: I second the motion.

The motion was unanimously carried.

MR. REED: Mr. President, I would like to make a suggestion in regard to the date. There are two purposes that we have in mind. One to see things growing and another to see the product. We can hardly do both the same year. This year we have seen things growing. We have had almost a summer meeting and it seems to me that unless the local folks who have invited us to Lancaster should disagree we might well afford to have our next meeting a December meeting. Then we can see nuts. We can discuss nuts themselves. I would make that motion that our meeting be the second week in December the Wednesday and Thursday of the second week in December, 1921.

THE TREASURER: Would not the prime object in going to Lancaster be to see things grow? Wouldn't it be difficult if not impossible to really accomplish that by a December meeting?

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I think a winter meeting might just us well be held in New York or Baltimore or Washington. I do not agree with Mr. Reed. If I go to Lancaster I would go to see things. I went up there one December and nearly froze.

DR. MORRIS: We could split the difference between the two. I think Mr. Jones and Mr. Rush should be consulted in the matter.

MR. RUSH: I think it would be important to have it the same week as the York Fair as they have the reputation of never having any rain and this is a very good time of the year to have an exhibition. You see the fine crops and everything which is agricultural and horticultural. And another thing in connection with this we can see the hazels on the bushes at this time of the year.

DR. MORRIS: I move that we meet about this time next year.

MR. RUSH: I think this week in 1921.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: In order to get the matter before the meeting I move that the convention next year meet at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on the Thursday and Friday of the first week in October.

MR. JONES: I second the motion.

The motion was unanimously carried.

PRESIDENT LINTON: Before closing I want to call to your recognition a kindly act that I know will please you all. Yesterday while we were having our pictured taken I lost this package of papers. Today it has been returned to me by two boy scouts. From what I know of that organization I do not believe that there is anything doing the boy any more good than their training. I am interested in a forty-acre piece of land on Lawton Lake, Michigan, on which this year we permitted the boy scouts to camp. I followed their training somewhat to ascertain what it was. I was in camp with them two or three days and learned that it is a training that is doing the boys of the country a lot of good. Their motto as I understand it is to do good or to be of service to others. These two lads that brought this package to me refused to receive any compensation whatever. They are the two who have tramped from New York City to San Francisco and are now on their way back. If these boys or their organization ever get interested in our movement in the planting of nuts throughout the country we will be glad to help them.

PROF. CLOSE: There is one committee whose report has not been called for and for the sake of the record I presume it might better be offered. That is the auditing committee. The committee was composed of Messrs. Reed and Close and we desire to say that the report of the treasurer has been scrutinized very carefully and we are not able to detect any mistakes. The balance in the treasury is $75.26; total receipts including the amount on hand at the beginning of the year $666.48; total expenditures $591.22, leaving a balance in the treasury of $75.26.

THE TREASURER: I want to offer a resolution that Article III of the by-laws on _Membership_ which now reads, "All annual memberships shall begin with the first day of the calendar quarter following the date of the association" be amended to read, "That all annual memberships shall begin with the first day of such calendar month as shall be agreed upon."

Now I will tell you why I ask that. Most of the memberships are combined with the subscription to the American Nut Journal. In many instances the new members have requested that their subscription to the journal be dated back one or two months for the sake of getting one or twp numbers of the journal. In some instances they are already subscribers to the journal and they want to change it to make it come the same time. I offer that amendment to the by-laws.

MR. REED: I move that the change be made.

DR. MORRIS: I second the motion.

The motion was carried.

THE TREASURER: Here is another thing I think is a matter of a good deal of importance. There has been spoken of two or three times during the day the great progress which is likely to be made in systematic hybridization of nuts. It has come to my knowledge recently that the Arnold Arboretum is seeking to establish a regular plant breeding department. They have growing on their grounds the greatest collection of trees and shrubs that will grow in that section that can be found anywhere in the country. I want to offer a resolution as follows:

WHEREAS it is the firm belief of the Association that one of the
most hopeful sources of obtaining nuts better than we now have is
by carefully planned and executed work of hybridization, and

WHEREAS such work, particularly in the case of the slower
developing nuts, such for example as the hickories, will require
the uninterrupted carrying out of carefully planned work for a long
series of years, and

WHEREAS the Arnold Arboretum, of Jamaica Plain, Mass., has on its
grounds a greater collection of the trees and shrubs from all parts
of the world that will grow in that location than can be found
anywhere else in the country, including a large number of hickories
of various species in bearing, and

WHEREAS the Arnold Arboretum is now assembling on its grounds the
various propagated nut trees, and has expressed its intention of
continuing this work and of including all varieties that it may be
able to obtain of those hickory trees notable for any one quality
and which may promise to be valuable for hybridizing purposes, and

WHEREAS the Arnold Arboretum is desirous of establishing a regular
plant breeding department where nut trees, particularly hickories,
as well as trees valuable for timber purposes, flowers, etc., may
be bred, and, in order to provide for the uninterrupted carrying
out of this work is seeking to raise an endowment, be it hereby

RESOLVED: That the Northern Nut Growers Association assembled in
the City of Washington, D. C., this 8th day of October in the year
1920 heartily endorses this purpose of the Arnold Arboretum as one
likely to promote the acquisition of finer nuts than we now have,
and urges all persons able to do so to aid in any way possible.

DR. MORRIS: I move that we adopt that resolution.

MR. REED: I second the motion.

The motion was carried unanimously.

THE PRESIDENT: If there is nothing before the body at this time I will declare the eleventh annual session closed.