Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

In the early history of our country extensive and persistent efforts were made to introduce the European hazels, and no wonder, for of all nut trees this species seems to yield most readily to garden culture. They are readily capable of adapting themselves to most any kind of soil and even to rocky ledges which would be impossible to cultivate. They attain their greatest perfection in good soil and, under proper cultivation, the trees come into bearing early and the nuts mature early in the fall, well in advance of other species. The hazel, however, like the chestnut has met with a fatal disease. It is a blight which seems to exist everywhere except on the native species, which are so far immune as to show little or none of its effects. The American hazels, however, act as host plants to the blight, which thus quickly spreads, with fatal results, to the European species. Of all the plantings which have been made during the past one hundred and fifty years, it is safe to say that there are less than half a dozen hazel orchards in the eastern states which have not succumbed. It seems quite probable that a golden opportunity is awaiting someone who is willing to go through the forests of our eastern states, especially those in lower New England, in search of individual hazels from which to propagate new varieties. Among the heavy bearing shrubs, which exist in the section referred to, it is certain that many hazels could be found well worth propagating.

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Turning now from this brief history of northern nut trees, let us consider the future of the industry as viewed in the light of sound theory and actual observation. It is unnecessary to present any argument why nut trees should be planted. Nuts afford the highest grade food known to science. They are wholesome, healthful, strengthening,--in fact, without a single objectionable feature so far as I know as an article of food and, when one considers that food is the basis of human existence, no further argument is necessary to warrant interest in one of the best foods known.

Then how shall we advise the prospective grower of a nut orchard? First, let him determine what kinds of nuts thrive in his vicinity. The prospective grower in the latitude of Evansville can indulge himself to his heart's content, for he can grow successfully the pecan, English walnut, black walnut, butternut, hazel and, up to date, the chestnut. But, success in growing any of these trees depends upon proper information, proper varieties, proper soil and proper care. Suppose a man, in the Evansville latitude, for instance, desires a pecan orchard. What should he do? His quickest way, if he has wild seedling pecan trees growing on his farm, would be to have the wild trees top-worked to well-known varieties. If he has no seedling trees, then his next best plan is to purchase budded trees of good varieties from some honest nurseryman, set them not less than sixty feet apart and cultivate and care for them. Will they grow around fence corners and creek banks? Yes, if you have plenty of time to wait. They will not, however, be in a hurry, and it may be your grandchildren who will gather the nuts. But, a cultivated orchard of budded pecan trees of the right varieties ought to come into commercial bearing as soon as does an apple orchard. Mr. W. C. Reed of Vincennes reports Busserons that were budded fourteen months ago setting as high as sixteen nuts this year. That is, the second summer after they were budded. If the trees are of the right varieties, well cultivated, in good soil, and if you care enough for them to throw some fertilizer around them, they will please you by their growth and soon become very profitable.

Now suppose one wants an orchard of English walnuts. Almost identically the same instructions hold true. If you have wild black walnut seedlings on your farm, by all means have them top-worked to fine varieties of English walnut, for the black walnut is the best root for the English walnut. If you have no seedling trees, go to some reputable nurseryman and buy known varieties of hardy English walnuts budded on hardy black walnut stocks. Set them not less than fifty feet apart and cultivate and care for them. Mr. Rush reports one of his budded Rush trees four years old bearing fifty-seven walnuts this year. I saw a Rush in Washington City the other day, two years old, carrying about a dozen walnuts; also a Hall, of the same age, carrying about the same number. Both trees were thrifty and not much over waist high, and every terminal twig had from one to two nuts on it.

If you have wild hickory trees growing on your farm, have them top-worked by the slip-bark or budding method to fine varieties of shagbarks. In the absence of wild hickories, I believe the future will prove that the next best method of starting an orchard of budded shagbark hickories is to buy them budded on hardy northern pecan stocks. The hickory is not the best stock for the pecan because it is of slower growth, and for the same reason the pecan ought to be the better stock for the hickory. But the hickory does not grow as rapidly as does the English walnut or the pecan and requires more patience.

The hazels are going to afford a great field for the nut grower, as they are native to a wide territory embracing the Middle West, the North and the East, and ought to be profitable. A few years ago I found a very fine large hazel growing on my farm in Warrick County, Indiana. I dug up some of the roots of this bush and planted them in my garden at Boonville, and in three years they were bearing fine clusters of hazels larger than those borne by the parent bush. I think farmers would find it profitable to set out hedges of native hazel bushes around their fields and fences and on hillsides.

Butternuts, black walnuts and beechnuts also offer a fertile field for experiment. Any varieties of butternut or black walnut can be propagated by budding or top-grafting them on seedling stocks.

I should like to suggest that every farmer in the nut growing belt set aside at least ten acres of land for a nut orchard. It will give him a new interest in life and afford him more pleasure and relief from the ordinary monotony of farm work, I believe, than any other line of work he can pursue. If Ponce de Leon had planted a nut orchard in this country instead of wasting his time searching for the fountain of perpetual youth he could have spent his old days in interesting, profitable and fascinating work instead of in despair and disappointment.

But some of the practical questions asked are, "What is the cost of a nut orchard?" and, "How soon will it bear?" and "What will it be worth when it does bear?" No man can answer these questions with any degree of certainty, for everything that man attempts has its drawbacks and disadvantages. First-class budded nut trees cost from one to two dollars apiece. The balance of the cost depends largely upon the intelligence and efficiency of the labor applied in setting and cultivating. When will they bear? That depends altogether upon who owns them. If properly cared for they will begin setting some nuts in a few years and will increase the crop as the years go by. A pecan tree ought to bear successfully for fifty years--possibly longer, and ought to be bearing nicely in eight years if properly cared for. But, success depends upon the care and intelligence with which the original selection of trees and soil is made, and upon proper cultivation. I have set an orchard of northern varieties of pecans budded from the parent trees in the Evansville section on my farm in Maryland this spring. The land cost me sixty dollars per acre. When they are ten years old they ought to be worth at least five hundred dollars per acre. I do not know how much more this grove of nut trees will be worth in ten years, but I would not option them at the present time for that price. I have about the same confidence in the English walnut.

I have always been conservative on these matters and always expect to be because in conservatism lies safety. These figures I have given you are merely my personal opinion. I have seen pecan groves ten and fifteen years old for which I would not have given any more than the land was worth on which they were growing. If any one has a notion that he can make money in nut culture, without intelligent exertion, he had better go into some other line of business in which there are men having a fair degree of success with unintelligent effort. I know of no nut grove in the whole United States that is succeeding without intelligent application, and on the other hand I do not know of a single grove which with intelligent application is not succeeding. I am a "conservative-optimist." I have been talking nut culture for a number of years and expect to see every hope and estimate which I have expressed fulfilled, and after all has been said and considered my final advice is to _Plant Nut Trees_.

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THE PRESIDENT: The chair invites a very active discussion of this paper.

PROFESSOR SMITH: It would be unkind to criticize so very instructive an address but there is one thing laid down in that paper I wish to speak about. I believe we were told we must cultivate our nut trees. I believe the fact is that in the greater portion of the United States, we can grow trees, even nut trees, without cultivation. If anybody doesn't believe that, go to Washington by the Chesapeake Railroad and you will see thousands of walnut trees along the way. I believe the human race can grow trees on a hillside without cultivation, and I want to suggest to persons putting out nut trees to put out a few in places where they don't have to be plowed, and see if they don't get good results. Cultivation is not a fundamental element of agriculture or plant life, but is the quick way to get results.

In many places in Ohio the state experimental work in horticulture, especially that carried on by F. H. Ballou, has done some wonderful things in waking up apple orchards that had not grown a quarter of an inch in years. Merely giving them food has caused them to wake up and bear. I have seen them, and know. The books say that while apples may grow without cultivation, peach trees _must_ be cultivated in order to bear. I have peach trees that are three years old in a rocky piece of ground. I can't plow it but I have fed some of the peach trees and a few I did not, that is not much, and the ones that were fed as they should be are much the biggest and are bearing well. My point is this, keep the grass well scraped away to prevent trunk injury, and feed even a peach tree and it will do well. I think the same is true of the nut tree.

Whether a tree that is set out, liberally fed, and the grass kept away will do as well without cultivation, is a subject worthy of your consideration and experiment.

THE PRESIDENT: The chair especially desires to call attention to Dr. Smith's remarks because he has made a very careful study of this question and his suggestions are worthy of very great consideration. I have talked these things over with him a great deal and I commend his remarks especially to the Association for discussion.

DR. MORRIS: In connection with the matter of cultivation I would also like to have Mr. Reed discuss that. I want to say, however, that, in using fertilizers, you will often very easily overdo the matter. Sometimes in my experience professionally, I give a patient medicine enough to last a week, with directions that a teaspoonful be taken twice a day, and the patient may believe if she takes the entire bottle at one dose she will be well in an hour, and consequently suffer from an overdose. That same idea is sometimes carried out in the fertilization of trees by horticulturists. You don't intend to do it but sometimes you can kill with kindness and be too good in feeding your trees if you don't understand how much fertilization the tree needs. That is the idea, you have got to give your trees the ratio that they need. If you give them too much pie or pudding, your trees will have indigestion and will not thrive and may die. I have lost a great many good trees, and a great many nut trees, and have checked the growth of a great many by not realizing this. I wish Mr. Reed would speak to us about it.

MR. POTTER: I want to state some experience I have had and when Mr. Reed talks, I wish he would give me some information. I set out some pecan trees on my lawn in the front yard, and of course there is not much cultivation there except around the trees. It is like most other lawns in southern Illinois, mostly clay and what other soil we put on top. Now the clay is very hard and in setting the trees I had my man dig a hole three feet deep and two feet across and in setting the trees I packed good dirt around them. The question is how should I feed those trees? I have put barn manure around them and they are now growing and doing very nicely, I want to know if I have pursued the right course.

MR. MCCOY: I believe this question of growing trees in fence corners and on hillsides is not so large a question. The main thing is to give them plenty of water. There is very little land in the Mississippi valley that won't grow pecan trees or most any other kind, if you will give them sufficient mulch and plenty of water, because they take their food in the form of soup. Unless they have water, they won't grow. I believe the best cultivation you can give a tree of any kind is a good mulch of straw and manure. You that have had experience in this part of the country know that is the best way to cultivate trees.

I grew a peach orchard once in one year, but I have quit that, I have learned better. It is simply a question of water and plant food. If you will mulch any kind of a tree, nut tree or any kind, with ten or fifteen inches of straw and stable manure, you will have a steady growth from early spring until late in the fall, and it will make a strong tree.

PROFESSOR SMITH: While we are waiting for Mr. Reed I want to take up Mr. McCoy's soup suggestion. Water doesn't make good soup without something in it. Experiments show that you can mulch ground in some places and not wake up the tree, but fertilizer will wake it up the first year.

MR. POTTER: What kind of fertilizer did you use?

PROFESSOR SMITH: One must experiment to see what his land is short on. Sometimes you can fertilize your trees without any result. Sometimes potash will not do any good and sometimes it will. You will have to see what your ground needs. For young apple trees I found in my particular situation that nitrate of soda is all I want. I have what is called a Porter's clay soil on the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I use that and then my trees get busy and grow. They make rapid growth even the first season with a handful of nitrate and for my three year old trees half a pound is enough. That is what my soil seems to need and we must use what the soil is short on. That is my interpretation of my situation and it works.

THE PRESIDENT: Who can tell us whether nitrate of soda is good for nut trees? Can you, Mr. Simpson?

MR. SIMPSON: In the South, we do not think so.

THE PRESIDENT: The reason I asked, is that I have been studying that. I wrote Mr. Potter a letter suggesting that he use some on his young nut trees to see what it would do, and later I found out that all through the South it was not regarded as desirable. It seems they claim it starts pecan trees into an active growth but when they stop they make a very sudden stop and don't start growing any more. I want to get this in the record right here. You understand that is the general belief throughout the South, do you not?

MR. SIMPSON: Yes sir, it is not considered good.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Smith has made a very careful study of fruit trees and knows its effect on them from experiments, but it is well perhaps to consider fruit and nut trees separately.

PROFESSOR SMITH: I should suggest to anybody who is thinking of working with trees, to get some seedling pecans and plant them and then fertilize some of them and others not, in the same kind of soil. In that way he can get his own fertilizer conclusions at a small expense and then he will know what his own soil needs.

MR. MCCOY: We fertilized seedling pecans in a clay soil and we decided the trees we did not fertilize got along better than the ones we did. Of course that ground is better where the trees are than on the average farm. We used nitrate of soda and potash but we decided the ones we didn't fertilize did the best.

MR. POTTER: I put two pounds of nitrate of soda around each tree and the English walnuts I used it on budded out very shortly after using it, but along about June they died. The pecan trees we used it around grew fairly well, but some of them, one in particular, appeared to remain dormant, almost, until about two months ago when it commenced growing and is now growing very rapidly. So you see I don't know where I am at.

THE PRESIDENT: In writing you I did not understand the size of the tree. On some trees I have been using a tablespoonful, about that, and I was afraid I got too much.

MR. POTTER: Evidently I got too much.

THE PRESIDENT: Evidently we got mixed up on the quantity. I know I never used more than two tablespoonfuls at any time and I should imagine two pounds would be a big overdose. I remember talking to Dr. Smith about that time about some old apple trees around which you can use five or six pounds of nitrate of soda and I suppose that is the way we got mixed up. I must have had that in mind as I did not intend to advise that amount for young nut trees.

MR. POMEROY: How long a season should the tree keep growing? From early spring to late in the fall? My experience is they will stop about the first of August, and let the wood ripen up and harden for the cold weather. Some might keep the trees growing longer, but you will hurt the trees I think.

THE PRESIDENT: We have not heard from Mr. Reed yet.

MR. C. A. REED: I am glad the discussion has proceeded as it has since it has given me time to reconnoitre. I hardly know what to say on this subject that Professor Smith has brought up. I guess he knows what he is talking about so far as his experiments have taught him. The department does not like to discourage a good thing nor to encourage a thing that is too risky. There is one thing quite sure and that is that so long as nut trees are selling for from one dollar to two dollars apiece, very few people are going to buy them and plant many of them on these hillsides and experiment with them. People cannot afford to do that. We have found, taking the country over, that nut trees thrive best when they are given treatment; that is they must be given cultivation and fertilization; be given some degree of attention the same as an apple or peach orchard. Colonel Sober, however, will show you quite a different thing. He will show you chestnut trees that are not cultivated at all, so there is a staggering blow to my argument, and yet Colonel Sober gets something like three and a half bushels to the tree. You don't fertilize those trees, do you, Colonel Sober?

COLONEL SOBER: No sir, not at all. Haven't yet.

MR. REED: So there is an argument that silences me and still it is true that we can't safely plant hickories and pecans without some degree of cultivation. I don't think Professor Smith has planted any on these hills.

Still we all agree with Professor Smith in a way. Something ought to be done to the surface to prevent the land from washing, and there is no better way of doing that than by planting trees. Then the roots will prevent washing and they can take care of themselves better than a surface crop. Especially is this true on the hillsides, so there is a good deal in Professor Smith's argument. And yet there is the danger that those trees will be infected with disease and insects. On plants and trees that are attended to and cultivated we find those pests will be kept in check. So there are two sides to that argument.

PROFESSOR SMITH: The point I raised was this, that it is possible in some places to attain by fertilization the advantage that comes by cultivation in other places. Great things have been done without fertilization. There are chestnut orchards in Corsica of grafted trees, ranging from the size of my wrist to eighteen to twenty feet in circumference. They have not been fertilized in centuries, and they yield enough to support the entire population.

THE PRESIDENT: We would like to hear from Col. Van Duzee, and I want to say that, as President of the National Nut Growers Association, he is well acquainted with these things. I commend him to you and promise that whatever he may have to say to you is worthy of your very careful consideration. I have the honor to belong to the association of which he is the president, and know it is seldom we have an opportunity to hear men like him.

COL. VAN DUZEE: Gentlemen, I am going to side step this argument for I do not think it worth while taking up the time. We are here for other purposes. Personal experiences are not the general rule because each one's experience differs from that of others. We might all tell our personal experiences and after we were all through we would not have accomplished anything. I want to take you back to the point from which we started this, in order to know what we are talking about. To illustrate what I want to say to you, we can take the root pasture of a tree and analyze it in every possible way so as to bring to bear upon it the best judgment we have from all sources. The tree grown upon a hillside has a root pasture which is entirely different in many ways from the root pasture in the river bottoms. If we have a tree growing on a hillside in a soil that easily transmits moisture and it gives that tree constantly a stream of pure water going through its root system, and there happens to be enough fertility in that vicinity, that moisture is impregnated with plant food, and the tree will get all it wants. You can't speak in the same breath of the tree growing in the river bottoms whose entire root pasture is entirely different. The root pasture may become contaminated by various things which may cause, so to speak, ptomaine poison. Therefore I say that every locality, every soil, every climatic condition, every variety of tree must be taken as individual. What would be good for an apple orchard in Virginia might be fatal to an apple orchard immediately south of Lake Brie in Ohio. The use of commercial fertilizer that would be good in one locality would be bad in another. Therefore I disapprove of this kind of a discussion, because we are not speaking to a definite point. I want to bring your minds to this point, that every individual tree and its locality, and the man that is responsible for its welfare, must be analyzed before you can speak intelligently about what must be done.

I am going to tell you the same story I told the societies at Pharoa, Alabama. They wanted me to talk on this subject and I said, "You remind me of a backwoods character I have come in contact with in the woods of Florida who is ill and doesn't know what is the matter with him. He knows he needs medicine and he goes down to the general store and buys a bottle of patent medicine recommended by the groceryman and he takes it and maybe it helps him and maybe it don't, but if he don't get better he goes and gets advice from some other man like the grocer." I said, "That is the way you are demonstrating fertilizer." The first thing I would advise would be this: to analyze the individual pasture of the individual tree and take everything that enters into the history of that tree and everything that bears upon it. All the accumulated wisdom of others won't help us very much. We have to use common horse sense. We can't talk about these things generally. In poor soil and under bad conditions the pecan tree will do nothing. There are trees I know twenty-six or twenty-seven years old that are not as large as my wrist, that have never borne a nut and never will. I can also show you trees in that immediate vicinity, planted at the same time from the same nuts with favorable conditions, that are seventy or eighty feet high and bearing good crops of nuts. Those nuts came out of the same bag the same day, and were planted by the same man in the same locality, and that proves, as I have said before, that you cannot discuss things of this kind in general terms and it is a waste of the time of the association to do so. I would be glad to answer definite questions as to definite points.

THE PRESIDENT. The next will be a talk by Dr. R. T. Morris of New York.

DR. MORRIS: Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Association: My subject relates to personal experiences with hybridization work. This is work which is to be done more and more by various members of our association, and we are thus to create new species of trees. Nature's whole endeavor is to preserve the mean type among races of organisms. There are mutants among all trees, among the hickories and walnuts, as well as among the peaches and pears. In fact all species undergo mutation. We select the most desirable mutants and we try to fix a given type by grafting and propagating. Seedlings will go back toward the mean type. The mean type hickory, walnut or chestnut is the type that nature wishes to preserve, but these are not best for man's purposes. What is best in nature's plan is not always best in man's plan. We have got to dynamite nature. We have got to put a charge of dynamite under nature's seat and blow her up, in order to get what we want for our own purposes. How do we do it? How do we break up the mean type of a variety or species? By crossing the flowers and bringing together the parents we wish to unite in the hope of growing new forms, among which will be some that are particularly desirable for our purposes.

Now in doing this work, I have had to get by experience a number of points which will be of value to members of this association. First, in regard to collecting pollen. Sometimes species, which we wish to cross, flower at widely different times. They bloom perhaps two or three or four or even six weeks apart, and it is a question how long we can keep the pollen viable. What can we do about it? There are two good ways. First, get your branches of male flowers before they are open, put them in cold storage, or in an ice house, or in a dark room, and keep them anywhere from one to six weeks dormant. When you want to use them, and your trees of the pistillate flowers are ready, take the branches of staminate flowers out of the ice house and put them in jars of water in a warm room in the sunshine. They will blossom and make good pollen shortly. Another way is through correspondents living at a distance. These correspondents will send you pollen from a species which blossoms later further north or earlier further south, at the time which you wish for your pistillate flowers. For instance, in crossing chinkapins with oaks, the chinkapins will blossom about the 12th of June in Connecticut but most of the oaks are through blossoming by the 12th of May. There we have a month's difference. How can I use oak pollen upon my chinkapin trees? I do this by sending away up to the northern limits of the growth of the oak tree, up in Canada. The red oak tree blossoms there in June, the same species that blossoms with me early in May. Pecan pollen that I wish to use upon shagbarks and walnuts I get from Texas. Now how are we to keep pollen when we have collected it, if we are not ready to use it immediately? I have had pollen sent to me from a distance in tightly corked bottles. It was probably ruined at the end of three or four days, because it could not breathe. Every grain of pollen has to breathe just as surely as a red squirrel in the top of a tree has to breathe. The pollen grain is a living organism, and if it is sent in a closely corked bottle it smothers and dies. You must have it sent in paper or wooden boxes in order to have it in good condition when it arrives, and it must be kept in a cool place, not too dry and not too damp. If it is kept in a place that is too damp, various fungi appear, and begin to attack it at once. If it is too dry, it loses its water content, and its protoplasm does not make combination with that of the other flower. So we must keep our pollen in a cool place, not too dry, not too warm and not too moist, and where it can breathe. We may put it in cold storage but not at a temperature below freezing. We may put it into the cold storage which florists use, and keep it for a long while. Some pollen will keep, viable for three weeks, under these conditions, possibly longer. It is important to keep your pollen boxes open at the top. They must be kept where the wind doesn't blow your pollen from one box to another. I had not been impressed by that point until this year. I had eight different kinds of pollen about the farm house, in different rooms, in order to be sure to keep them far apart. One day on my arrival from town ready for pollenating a number of trees, I found that a very neat housekeeper had found it undesirable to keep such boxes scattered about in so many places. She had put them all neatly together in a closet on one shelf, and there was none of the pollen that I could use, because the wind had mixed the kinds all up. I had eight kinds of pollen across which one kind of wind had blown.

There is one practical point in cross pollenizing flowers that I have recently learned. Pollen of one variety may not combine with the ovule of another variety or species but may stimulate the ovule to go on and develop all alone, without taking to itself the added pollen. That is a very important point, and possibly a new point. I was deceived, and reported that I had crosses of certain trees, and that such hybrids were growing. I knew that the flowers of parent trees had been properly protected from their own pollen. Now when these young trees are two years of age, I find they are true to one parent type; so true that they are evidently not hybrids. They have developed from the pistillate parent only. In ordinary parthenogenesis the fruit grows without any pollen influence at all. This forced parthenogenesis which I have described seems to be a phenomenon with which botanists are unfamiliar. Until I learn that it has been described and named by others I shall call it Allergic Parthenogenesis (Allos, ergon). The pistillate flowers accept absolutely no pollen, but go on and develop because of its impulse given. In cross pollenizing flowers, I find one point of great practical consequence. When covering the female flowers with paper bags to protect them from their own pollen you give protection to a great number of insects. The insects remain inside these bags and destroy the leaves and flowers. They are protected there from their enemies, predatory insects and the birds. When the bags are taken off, perhaps a week later, for the purpose of adding pollen to pistillate flowers, insects may have destroyed the leaves and even the flowers. Consequently, I find it best to sprinkle the leaves with Persian insect powder and to put some of it in the bags that are to cover the flowers. Insects can't live in an atmosphere of this insect powder. They sneeze themselves to death. I have taken the bags from leaves and flowers which were so badly injured by insects you could distinguish them at a considerable distance. Those are all the points that I jotted down for this address today, but no doubt many other points will be brought out in the subsequent discussion.

MR. MCCOY: I would like to inquire how far it is possible under a microscopic examination to determine the species of the pollen.

DR. MORRIS: It is possible to determine the species but not the variety so far as I know. It may be possible to determine a variety but I don't know the extent to which that is possible, from microscopic examination of the pollen. If we wish to know whether pollen is still good or not we may in twenty-four or forty-eight hours cause it to "sprout," and in that way know whether it is viable and good. We may save ourselves a good deal of trouble by making this examination and determining whether or not a given lot of pollen is viable before putting it on the flowers. We can cause it to sprout in a sugar solution.

THE SECRETARY: What is the strength of the sugar solution?

DR. MORRIS: That is technical work and must be done by a plant physiologist. He will do it for us at the State Agricultural College and telegraph his report.

MR. DORR: Is this work you have outlined of sufficient definiteness to get results? That is the important thing. We farmers sometimes discover a plan accidentally that will outclass anything we can get in an agricultural college.

DR. MORRIS: That is very important. We are to produce nuts that are better, and also in greater quantities. The question if hybridizing work is valuable has been already answered in the case of roses and soft fruits. Our best types are largely the ones which have been secured by hybridization and the same will be true of nuts. The subject has not been so largely taken up as yet with nuts. Very few of us are doing with nuts what has been done with other fruits.

THE PRESIDENT: The chair wishes to say that the members of this association have a very great and rare opportunity to secure information on this subject. Dr. Morris has made a very careful study of it.

DR. MORRIS: The more study I make, the less I seem to know. Consequently I shall be very modest in my replies.

MR. DORR: I have been working with different things and find so many things I can't get at the truth. In the last year I have made experiments in breeding cattle to get colors, and I was agreeably surprised with my own success. I want to know if you can get similar results. I can observe the results so readily that I know exactly how I get them.

DR. MORRIS: As a general statement the same thing you get from working with animals we may expect to get in working with plants. The protoplasm of plants is now known to act like that of animals, but not quite so quickly or freely in response to cultural methods. We can breed to size and breed to quality and character of fruit, and we find we may do with plants just about what we do with animals, only not quite so quickly, because animal protoplasm responds more readily.

MR. W. C. REED: I would like to ask if in a cross between the Persian walnut and the shagbark hickory there is a cross pollenization, or is it an increased vitality given by the pollen? Is there really a cross there?

DR. MORRIS: I made one cross between the Persian walnut and the shagbark hickory that was evidently a good hybrid. It showed character of both parents, but I lost that entire lot. I wasn't careful enough in protecting them. I have another lot of crosses between these two flowers in which the type often is so definitely shagbark hickory that I doubt if there is any walnut there at all. Under certain conditions we may get hybrids, yet miss it at another time, even when working with the same parents. Somebody has probably made a better study of this point and recorded better ideas. I think we may safely say that we may expect an actual cross between some walnuts and hickories.

MR. MCCOY: Would it be possible to cross the English walnut and the black walnut and produce a nut of superior quality?

DR. MORRIS: Yes, it is possible to cross them, but you do not often get a nut of superior quality. The tendency seems to be to have a nut of thick shell and of not high quality, but if you make a thousand of those crosses, out of the thousand you may get a few of just what you want.

PROFESSOR CLOSE: I want to ask if you are always careful to apply the pollen when it is well ripened?

DR. MORRIS: Yes, I have always been careful to apply it at just the time when it was well ripened, and that is of great importance in its bearing upon Mr. Reed's question. If I have pollen which is quite ripe I may perhaps catch it upon an ovule, but if it is not ripe I won't got the cross. I may add it a little too early or too late when the pistillate flower is unprepared and I won't get a cross. If I get my pollen just at the right time upon the pistillate flowers I may have a good cross, between varieties which do not cross readily.

PROFESSOR CLOSE: In my experience in breeding apples, formerly I always waited until the pollen was ripe, and that meant I had to cover the blossoms with bags and depend on the weather for conditions favorable to pollenation. But four or five years ago I began pollenating much earlier and I have had good results.

DR. MORRIS: That is a very important point.

PROFESSOR CLOSE: By doing that I know it is pollenated. I have been failing so many years I felt it was a loss of all the first part of the work.

DR. MORRIS: It is a great convenience to be able to pollenate at the same moment when you emasculate.

A MEMBER: I would like to have you kindly explain to what extent cross pollenation can be made practical to the ordinary grower.

DR. MORRIS: Let's say that in case of the butternut we wish to experiment with removal of the thick shell, and also to obtain less of that strong oily flavor; we wish to get rid of those two things. In order to do that I would first think of the Japanese walnut, _juglans cordiformis_, which has a much thinner shell and is less oily and more bland. Crosses between this Japanese walnut and the butternut we may fairly expect will sometimes give us a large, thin shelled butternut of good character. The next question is, who is going to do it? The men about my place are pretty busy, and this is rather delicate work. It is going to be a most inspiring field for the young folks and the ladies, because it is nice, pretty, ladylike work, and beside that its returns may be large. If your little daughter, ten years of age, knows that she may get $2,000 for a single cross that she has made, it is stimulating, because it is not every child ten years of age who can put $2,000 in the bank, as personal earnings of increment.

MR. MOSELY: I would like to ask just what results you expect from the cross pollenization of these nuts, and just how far they will differ from the parent type?

DR. MORRIS: You are bound to have continuance of one parent type, but in crossing with pollen from hybrids you may carry desirable characteristics through a series of generations and breed for what is wanted, possibly to the sixth generation or even further with some species.

MR. MOSELY: Then the type is not fixed until pollenization?

DR. MORRIS: By selecting the one showing the dominant characteristics you wish to preserve, you could breed through several generations and have an ideal type eventually.

MR. DOAN: I would like to ask how far the buds are developed in cold storage before the pollen can be used?

DR. MORRIS: For instance, take the hazel when its catkins are just beginning to elongate. It may be put in the ice house and kept there, for two or three weeks dormant. When we wish to develop those flowers we put the branches in a jar of water in a warm room and in about three days the plants are shedding pollen. I got some hazel catkins this spring that were elongating. It was the latter part of February when we had one or two warm days and I believed my pistillate hazels were about ready for pollen. I got those branches from Rochester. We had unexpected cold weather and storms and my pistillate hazels did not bloom until more than two weeks later. I kept these undeveloped catkins that I had received in a cold dark place. When I wanted to use them I put them in a jar of water and in less than three days they were shedding pollen freely, at a time when my pistillate flowers were ready for pollen.

MR. MOSELY: I would like to know the object in crossing the oak on the chinkapin.

DR. MORRIS: My idea is to get a chinkapin tree twice as large as an oak, perhaps. I shall hope to have a chinkapin tree as sturdy as the red oak, with nuts larger than acorns and of as good quality as the chinkapin nut. Of course that extravagant possibility only appeals to one with a speculative nature.

THE PRESIDENT: Pursuant to the authority conferred on the President this morning, the following committees are announced:

On Nomination--Robert T. Morris, Chairman: C. P. Close, J. L. Doan, R. T. Olcott, C. A. Reed.

Exhibits--Prof. C. P. Close, Chairman; J. P. Wilkinson, E. A. Riehl, Colonel Sober, W. C Reed.

Resolutions--W. O. Potter, Chairman; H. R. Weber, J. Russell Smith.

The chair also wishes to place an additional member on the membership committee, in the place of Mr. Corsan, who has not been able to attend the last two meetings, and will appoint Leon D. Batchellor of Utah.

Committee on Revision of Constitution and Rules--Prof. C. P. Close, Dr. W. C. Deming.

I will also add to the committee on nomenclature C. A. Reed and R. L. McCoy.

THE PRESIDENT: We have a few minutes before time for adjournment and Mr. Evans, a dynamite man, will speak to us.

MR. EVANS: Mr. Chairman: The question arises as to what kind of dynamite to use in the different soils. Most pecan land contains clay and can best be worked by dynamite. Don't buy ordinary dynamite, because it is too high an explosive. For several reasons it is not the kind of an explosive you wish. In some places dynamite can hardly be put on the market as many people are afraid of it and so the word dynamite has been eliminated, and we now have what we call Red Cross Farm Powder. It will work in any part of the country, it is not a high explosive and the price is lower as the hardware dealers have it direct from the Dupont companies. By using this Red Cross Farm Powder, less labor is required and it doesn't cost very much. For labor and all it will cost you about five cents per hole, and that includes the dynamite caps, fuse and labor.

PROFESSOR SMITH: How much do you use?

MR. EVANS: That depends on the soil and also on the depth to which you want to shoot the hole. Nurserymen have different opinions on that subject, but in the southern field where I have been working they usually go from two and a half to three feet deep. They use one-half stick 20 per cent dynamite, or one quarter of a pound as it weighs two sticks to the pound. That should make a hole two and a half or three feet deep. Fuse is cheap and you should use plenty of it. A man has to be governed always by the kind of soil he is dealing with.

MR. POMEROY: In shooting an old apple orchard how deep would you go?

MR. EVANS: Where I have been working from three and a half to four feet, but as I said before it will depend largely on the soil.

MR. POMEROY: How far from the body of the tree?

MR. EVANS: I have never made a study of that.

MR. POTTER: In limestone soil, for instance, built up with clay, how near the trees would you use the dynamite if you want to loosen up the soil?

MR. EVANS: What kind of trees?

MR. POTTER: Pecan.

MR. EVANS: About six feet. I think that is close enough.

MR. POTTER: Would you make more than one hole around the tree?

MR. EVANS: Use your own judgment about that.

MR. POTTER: How far out will it loosen or break up the ground?

MR. EVANS: Probably six feet. You can distinguish on the top of the ground where it takes place.

MR. POTTER: How deep will it be?

MR. EVANS: About a foot deeper than the charge is placed.

THE SECRETARY: With me the most important thing in using dynamite is the question of headache. I used the 20 per cent at first and it had no effect. I had heard of its causing headaches and knew some people couldn't use it but I thought I was immune. Then I began to use 70 or 80 per cent and I got knocked out for twenty-four hours. The more I used it the more susceptible I became. When I went back to handling the lower percentages I got the same results, was completely knocked out and had to go to bed. Sometimes the effect would come on a long time after I used the dynamite, perhaps hours afterwards, and the headache would increase, until I was intensely nauseated and had to give up entirely. Is there anything to prevent that? Is it caused by the fumes after the explosion?

MR. EVANS: Some say it is from handling the dynamite, others say it is the fumes after the explosion. Red Cross has ammonia in it and that ought to help some. Dynamite contains nitro glycerine and if you handle it bare handed it gets in the pores of the skin and causes rapid heart action. In dynamiting holes for tree planting you will get the fumes and you will get a headache. If a man could work with gloves on he could avoid this to a very great extent. You can't do it easily but if you can do it without taking off the gloves I don't think it would bother you much. I neglected to state that dynamite by itself is not dangerous because it will withstand shock or fire or anything like that. The danger is in the cap. It contains the most powerful explosive known. If you handle them carefully, there is absolutely no danger. This year we are slipping little copper disks into the caps with a pin hole for the fire to strike through.

MR. HARGIS: I have difficulty in making the shots. Should you put your cap at the bottom or the top of the stick?

MR. EVANS: I should advise the top. A misfire is always expensive. If you think it is necessary put in a cap in the bottom and one in the top.

MR. POMEROY: If you have a misfire and the men don't like to monkey around it, and neither do you, just step off a few inches and stick in another one and let her go. Will that fix the stick that didn't go off?

MR. EVANS: That is the safest way.

MR. HARGIS: In tamping say you have a hole in a rock four feet. I have had men tell me to pour the hole full of water. Is that right?

MR. EVANS: That is the best method known.

In tree planting you will always have to use your own judgment. Go down four or five or six feet to learn the character of the soil, tamp the cartridge well and as fuse is not expensive, always use plenty of it.

THE PRESIDENT: Any further discussion of this, or any further questions on the use of dynamite?

MR. DOAN: Mr. President, I would like to mention a method I found helpful. That is to make two holes in the cartridge, one diagonally down from one side, thrusting the fuse bearing the cap through that, and then making a hole diagonally in the other side and thrusting the cap in it.

MR. EVANS: We do not advocate using that method because dynamite will become ignited from the fuse and will burn. To be frank with you that is the method we use, but the company does not approve of it and we should not use it. You are liable to have a misfire. In warm weather there is no danger but in cold weather don't use it. The best method is to bore right in at an angle of forty-five degrees.

MR. POTTER: Do you advise us to use dynamite?

MR. EVANS: Yes, we have men making a business of it.

MR. POTTER: To be frank with you I don't like to use it.

MR. EVANS: Dynamite is not dangerous. It is the caps, though they look safe. It is that white stuff in the dynamite cap. There is where the danger is.

THE PRESIDENT: We will stand adjourned until 1 o'clock.

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Re-convened at 1 P. M.

THE PRESIDENT: I will ask W. C. Reed to state something of his program for Saturday so the members may know about it.