PRESIDENT LINTON: The subject is now before the body for discussion.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: To print the newspapers in the United States it requires enough wood each year to make one cord of timber from Boston clear across the American continent and across to the Hawaiian Islands and further. Most of that, perhaps half of it, comes from Canada. There is cut from the forests of the United States every year timber to make wood pulp enough to make one cord of wood from Boston to Liverpool. That is just for newspapers. That has nothing to do with furniture, with houses, with cross ties, with everything else, which are estimated to take four times as much. Now if that be true there is cut every year from the forests of the United States enough timber to make four cords from Boston to Liverpool. That is going on every year. We met here seven years ago. In that seven years there has been enough timber cut from the forests of the United States to make twenty-eight cords of wood from Boston to Liverpool. Now when you begin to contemplate that you see what is happening.

Roadside planting furnishes one of the greatest opportunities. There are many details that will have to be worked out. The bill which the Senator and our distinguished President have given much consideration to seems to be working along the right lines. Many difficulties will come up from time to time but this is one of the things that this Association ought to get behind. Here is a great need, a fundamental need, when you think of the figures which I gave you. Here is one of the opportunities to fulfill that need. We, as an organization of tree planters, ought to get busy to help to work out the details and difficulties that cannot be all foreseen in the application of the machinery of roadside planting and the particular laws of each state. Some people think sometimes that because a fellow is a lawyer he knows all the laws. There are forty-eight different states in the Union. I know that every state in the Union has a statute of limitations. It is three years in the District of Columbia. It is six years here. The fundamentals, the machinery of laws, are different in these particular states. Now then, what are the duties and what are the opportunities? A duty and an opportunity are rather more or less synonymous after all. It is for this Association to get actively behind this proposition, and help adapt this legislation to each particular state, keeping in mind that the fundamental thing is to plant trees. We are meeting here in Lancaster, Pa., a city to which I have always turned my thoughts with great pride, because here was the home of the founder of the great common school system of America, Thaddeus Stevens. Do you suppose when he began to originate the system which has made America that he could foresee all the difficulties, that he could foresee the difficulties in Texas, in Indiana, in New York? He started with a principle, and that principle has been adopted and developed and worked out in each particular state, until we have the great forty-eight different big school systems of America. We can take this proposition and by working it out, adapting it to the particular machinery, the particular laws, and meeting the particular difficulties, we can work it out until it becomes a great monument. We must plant trees.

MR. MCGLENNON: I want to say a word with regard to Senator Penney's reference to the importance of shrubs as a protection to the roadways from shifting sand. Mr. Volbertsen, my collaborator in my filbert enterprise in Rochester, got his early education in horticulture in Germany when a young man of twenty years of age, and he informed me the other day that along the side of the railroads' right of way, filberts were planted very extensively, in different parts of Germany, for the maintenance of the roadbed, to protect them from shifting sand. Not only that but they garnered wonderful crops of nuts.

MR. O'CONNOR: Concerning the planting of trees along the roadside, what enemies have they? I have watched this very closely since I have been connected with Mr. Littlepage's farm and I find that the walnut trees and pecan trees have very few enemies. I think that he has something like four hundred trees, and there were not three of them that were troubled with caterpillars. What better could we have along our road sides than nut trees when from the oak, the elm and other trees there are pesky worms dropping down when you go along with an automobile or carriage.

PRESIDENT LINTON: I want to say to the ladies present that the ladies of Michigan are greatly interested in this work. We recently established a state trunk line highway known as the Colgrove Highway, named for the President of our Michigan State Good Roads Association. Senator Penney was the introducer of that bill also and it became a law. That particular road runs across our state in such a way that it is about three hundred miles in length. One county that it crosses is known as Montcalm County. At a meeting we had in their court house we had a committee named in each township through which the highway passed for the purpose of properly planting trees and beautifying that highway. Upon my return home I received a letter from the county judge saying that the people of Montcalm County would not stand for planting and beautifying that one road alone but the whole county has been organized and every township in it and half of the membership of each committee is composed of women, and they want these trees and plants on every township road as well as on that state road. That is the way in which the work is going along in many sections of our state and it will soon cover it all with the same enthusiasm. So that the ladies can be of great good in this organization also. There is not a home or a residence street but desires fine shrubs and fine trees. It is especially so with the farmers. They want these beautiful things that the city people have been having for many years in their front yards. They are going to demand shrubbery and trees beyond any call that ever has been made for them in the past. So you can readily see from our work, although much of it is to be carried on in a public way by our agricultural colleges and state institutions of that kind, that they will be able to furnish only one tree or one plant in a hundred of those that will be demanded. That feature I wish especially to impress upon the minds of any nurserymen that may be present. The call in the next decade is going to be along those lines, for ornamental shrubbery and for useful trees, just as the fruit tree has been called for in the past.

MR. FAGAN: I don't know that I have anything constructive to add to the road side planting idea. I know that our landscape gardener at the experimental station in the college has, in the past few years, been giving it serious consideration, and if I am not mistaken he has taken the question up with our forest and state highway commissioners in the state. How far it is going to go I don't know. There is a feature of the roadside planting which has been mentioned indirectly this evening that we must not overlook. Just as soon as we consider a program of roadside planting we must also consider a program for the control of pests. Regardless of whether they be pecan trees or hickories or walnuts we are bound to meet with these pests. Whenever we begin a systematic planting, or collection of plants, it does not make much difference whether oak trees, or catalpas or chestnuts, or what not, we can look forward to the time when we will be confronted with a pest control proposition. As to roadside planting in New England it would not make much difference whether it was a walnut or butternut or pecan. A gipsy or brown tailed moth would just as soon eat the foliage off a butternut tree as off an elm. We have here in New Jersey at the present time the Japanese iris beetle and it will eat anything in sight. As soon as we turn nature upside down, as we have nearly done in many sections of the country, we are bound to bring in these pests. It would be well in any law—and I know in this state we would consider a law, and an experimental station could have charge of work connected therewith—that one of the provisions we would insist on being put in the law would be one to control the pests which may come. Right in our district today the tent caterpillar is playing havoc with our walnuts; the oyster shell scale is going through our timber in Center County; and I can take you into the mountains five miles from any residence and I can show you oyster shell scale on half a dozen of our native species. It is nice to kid ourselves along to think our butternuts and our hickories would never be subject to these pests, but they will be. When the Northwest started to plant apple orchards they said they had no codling moths up there. There were some orchards that didn't but sooner or later they came. The time to nip those things is in the bud, and not let them spread. Lack of foresight has cost New England millions and millions of dollars just because they would not take the advice of one man when he told them that the gipsy moth and brown tail moth had gotten away from him. They laughed at him.

I wonder whether this association could not get our federal road department back of this idea of roadside planting. I know that back of the federal aid movement there is an important point of contact in roadside planting.

SENATOR PENNEY: Our bill provides that the highway department shall care for and maintain the trees. I think the bill is broad enough to cover that subject. I think we all realize that we cannot stop planting trees for fear of some pest that might come, but we have got to provide the means of fighting it if it does come. Our highway department in Michigan has employed a man, a graduate of Yale College who is an expert in horticulture and all this work of planting and caring for the trees is to be turned over to him.

DR. CANADAY: In many parts of Germany the practice of planting trees along the state highways has been in vogue for perhaps half a century. They have used fruit trees and it has been found to be very feasible. The state has found that the proceeds of the trees has gone a long way towards keeping up the highways. Of course they probably have had their population under more rigorous control than ours has been. They have been able to collect the proceeds of the trees better. The question of the railroad rights of way might be taken up. A few of the railroads in the United States have already begun planting trees along their rights of way looking forward to a future supply of cross ties. It seems to me the greatest difficulty that will be encountered in this work will be the conflict with the telephone companies and the power lines. If that can be satisfactorily solved, I think the rest of it will be comparatively easy.

MR. SMEDLEY: In Pennsylvania near our large cities, the highway department has become aware that the roads are all too narrow. There was a bill passed in the last legislature giving the commissioner of highways a right to establish the width of roads at thirty-three feet, I think it was, with one hundred and twenty feet as the maximum. The department is now making a survey of all the main highways near the large cities. I happen to live just out of Philadelphia, about fifteen miles, on the line between Philadelphia and West Chester. It is a continuation of Market Street the principal east and west street of Philadelphia. It was laid out sixty feet wide. That was one of the first to claim the attention of the department and it will soon be, I understand, established on the map as one hundred feet wide or probably one hundred and twenty feet. That primarily is to stop the encroachment of the buildings near Philadelphia so that when the question of opening this road to its new width comes up damages will not be excessive. Some of us living along there take great pride in that road and want to see it developed but it is going to be some time before this is opened to its full width and it is needless to plant trees until it is. I don't know how you have things in Michigan but a great many of our Pennsylvania roads are old highways that have worn down with banks ten or fifteen feet high, and it is oftentimes a question where to put the trees.

PRESIDENT LINTON: Our highways in Michigan are, ninety per cent of them perhaps, four rods in width. That you will know is a good ample width, sixty-six feet wide. The basis of the planting as adopted by our state highway department, as I understand it, is thirteen feet from each line fence, making trees forty feet apart on opposite sides of the roadways. The main portion of the planting will be forty feet apart but that is simply a detail and the entire matter is left with the state highway commissioner and those who assist him. And, as stated by Senator Penney, they are very competent men in that department. Of course some trees would be placed further apart than others. There is no absolutely fixed distance. I don't know of any movement that will more quickly cause the planting of more trees than the one we are outlining at the present time in undertaking to cover the highways of this country. Michigan alone has six thousand miles of state trunk line highway. That is only a small portion of the highways in our state. These are the important roadways connecting our largest cities and business points. Just as an estimate I would say that we have ten times as many miles of roadway in Michigan as we have trunk line highways. If that average should be maintained throughout the country in each one of the states, and I imagine our state is an average one as to the number of miles of roadway, you would see that there would be three hundred thousand miles of trunk line highways alone, saying nothing about all the other highways and by-ways. So that I believe within the next five or ten years this roadside planting will cause more trees to be planted, and useful and valuable trees too, than all the efforts made in this country up to date in re-forestation. The people are alive to this subject and are asking for this very thing. It is only for us to map out a plan, arrange the details, and provide the sources from which they can obtain their supply and the trees will be planted.

It was my lot and good fortune last fall, following our meeting in the City of Washington, to visit Mount Vernon and there meeting the superintendent Mr. Dodge. He said to me that our association could have the products of the black walnut trees at Mount Vernon upon condition that that crop should not be commercialized in any way but used for public purposes. In behalf of the association I accepted the crop of walnuts, and, as I recall it, got in the neighborhood of thirty bushels of fine walnuts. They were selected walnuts the best and larger ones. It so happened that they arrived late in Saginaw, where my home is, and it was simply impossible to distribute them generally throughout the country. When it became known that we had these walnuts, and it became necessary to distribute these nuts and have them planted in our immediate locality, our people were delighted with the fact, and every school in every school district in the country called for them, and every city school called for some of these walnuts. They were planted in every school yard, in many cases with appropriate ceremonies along patriotic lines, and that did a great deal of good. Our citizens as individuals called for them. I was surprised to see the interest in it. They wanted them in their yards and at their city homes. Following all this I had about two thousand of these walnuts left. I wondered just what I could do with these. It was impossible to arrange a program for distribution so I asked the superintendent of parks of our city if he would plant and care for them and he readily agreed to do it. So that what was left of the consignment was placed in our finest and largest park. Shortly after having planted these, and the papers having noticed what had been done, I sent a copy to our honored first president, Dr. Morris. Soon thereafter I received a letter from him saying that he disliked very much to predict disappointment, but disappointment certainly was coming to us for our efforts in Saginaw, because, he said, "Mr. Linton, I have gone through this experience and the squirrels and other rodents will certainly get every one of those nuts. You will be disappointed in the results in the spring and I am telling you this so it won't come to you all at once. I want you to be prepared for the disappointment when it comes." I rather imagined it would come. I knew that the trees in that particular park harbored a good many fox squirrels and others, and I imagined they would get these walnuts. But I was very much astonished this spring to see the entire crop come up through the ground. I imagine it was a ninety-five per cent crop. So that we have about two thousand young walnuts growing about as high as this table from last year's planting. They are thrifty and they will be distributed around the state of Michigan this coming spring, and at other places. To show the interest manifested in that particular movement I will say that I received letters from perhaps half of the states in the country asking if they could not be supplied with some of these walnuts from George Washington's former home at Mount Vernon. I even got letters from the State of Virginia asking that some of them be sent from Saginaw, Michigan, to them in Virginia for planting at their home. So you can see how far reaching a thing of this kind can be. I know that we have started something here that will sweep from one end of the United States to the other, and will do more good along the lines of re-forestation than any organization up to date has been able to do.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I move that a committee be appointed to report at the morning session the best method of getting this bill before the various legislatures. I thought first of attempting to formulate what idea I might have in the form of a resolution, but it appears to me that it is something that may require a little thought. Therefore I move the appointment of a committee of three to report in the morning the best form of a resolution or whatever seems best to adopt by this association to get action.

This motion was put by President Linton and unanimously adopted.

The President appoints on this committee Mr. Littlepage, Senator Penney and Dr. Canaday.

PRESIDENT LINTON: This action will close the discussion relative to the tree planting law. Any other subject that you desire to discuss can be brought before the meeting in any proper manner.

MR. BIXBY: As the secretary noted this morning, perhaps the most extensive program of nut tree planting which has yet been carried out has been on the other side of the world, in China. One of the members of the association is Mr. Wang who lives near Shanghai and is secretary of the Kinsan Arboretum there. Some time ago he obtained some American black walnuts from Japan. He planted them and they grew so much faster than he had anticipated, and I think faster than any other tree with which he was familiar, that he conceived the idea of planting the new highway, which was being made from Shanghai to Hankow, with these American black walnuts. In due course he sent a money order to pay for two thousand pounds to the secretary. Last year was not the best year to get black walnuts, and the secretary forwarded the money order to me and asked me if I could get these walnuts for him. There was more trouble in getting them in New York last year than there usually is, but finally I did get them and had them made up in twenty-two bags and shipped to Mr. Wang at Shanghai. In due course they arrived and he is anticipating great things from them. The growth that he reported of this first lot of black walnuts was something astonishing. It seems to me that they grew the second year ten feet high. It was a very astonishing growth, a much more vigorous growth than I ever heard of their making here. At any rate there are two thousand pounds of American black walnuts that have been shipped to China, and if nothing happens to them they will grow and adorn that new road from Shanghai to Hankow.

MR. JONES: A matter that will be of interest is that Mr. Wang wrote me a letter in which he says that the black walnut grows three times as fast in China as the Japanese walnut. Here in the nursery we find the Japanese walnut doubles the black walnut in the first two years in growth.

PRESIDENT LINTON: We would like to hear from those present who are familiar with trees, as you all are, as to the merits and demerits of the various kinds of trees that we desire to plant. In Michigan the only ones we are considering are the black walnut, the hickory, the butternut and the beech. The beech in our state grows to be a beautiful tree, as it does in most states in our country. In addition to that our state agricultural people are suggesting that we plant the hard maple, which is a fine tree in Michigan, and the basswood, and one or two others, to provide food along certain lines. The hard maple, for instance, produces maple sugar, the basswood the bees draw honey from. The simple and useful trees and shrubs are the only ones in our state that we are giving any consideration to.

DR. CANADAY: What would be the best way to start a hickory along the roadside? From the nut?

PRESIDENT LINTON: From my experience with the black walnut I would say that would be the proper way to plant these hickories, to plant the nuts where the trees would be. It is far less expensive than any other method. It is easily cared for by the road men who take care of a section of the road.

MR. MCGLENNON: I am interested in the cultivation and culture of the European filbert at Rochester and have been for a number of years, and I believe successfully. In different meetings of this association that I have attended and in correspondence with the officers of the association, filbert culture in this country has been referred to as still in the experimental stage. Now when you have been in a thing for ten or twelve years and have not had any set-back but progress along all lines of activity, I believe you have passed out of the zone of experimentation and have gotten down to doing something. That is what we have done in Rochester with our nursery which I believe is the only thing of that particular kind in the country. Mr. Vollertsen, my collaborator, came to me with this idea years ago. He told me what he believed could be done and what had been done in filbert culture where he had been until about twenty years of age, having worked in a nursery from the time he had been able to do manual labor. In this nursery they had given especial attention to the cultivation of filberts and he had learned their method of propagation. He told me about this and believed it could be done in this country. I corresponded with some of the prominent nurserymen in the New England states and they told me it would be folly to attempt anything like that in this country, that I would be wiped out by the blight. They had tried it with some of the European varieties. Nevertheless I went ahead and imported five plants of twenty leading German varieties from Hoag & Schmidt, a prominent firm of nurserymen in Germany. I turned them over to Mr. Vollertsen having rented land for him and furnished the funds for the fertilization and cultivation of the land, paying a wage to him to go ahead and make the experiment. I wanted to know rather than to believe. His method of propagation was from the layer. Now we have fruited these propagated plants and found them true. We started in with half an acre. We now have two and a half acres, probably fifty thousand plants altogether. We have never had the semblance of blight. Our cultivation has been thorough. Our fertilization has been consistent. Mr. Vollertsen has been on the job very steadily and understands his business thoroughly. I think that this talk of blight is something that we should not take so seriously to heart. On half a dozen occasions some of our good friends have said, "What about the blight; don't you think it will wipe you out?" I think it is well to be prepared for the truth but the same thing might be said if I plant a peach orchard, that in a few years it will be wiped out by the yellows. I can't make myself believe that the matter of blight in filbert culture in this country is a serious menace. The consensus of opinion in this association seems to have been that even if it does appear there are remedies for it. Our esteemed first president, Dr. Morris, when he visited our place in Rochester some years ago when the convention met there, said that he thought we should not worry about it. He was satisfied that if blight appeared it could be controlled by the removal of the blighted part. I believe that the same principle applies to the development of filbert nurseries as to any phase of life, that eternal vigilance is the price of safety. I believe that thorough cultivation, keeping the plants strong and healthy, will help them resist disease. But if blight does appear, by watching closely it can be removed and I think controlled, as suggested by Dr. Morris. Maybe it has been all right up to the present time to be on our guard but there is my work that has been going on for ten or twelve years. During these last two or three years we have been sending our plants all over the country, to California, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Canada, and we have been getting fine reports with not a single reference to the appearance of blight. On the contrary they report that our plants are fruiting and they ask for more plants. As a specific instance I can cite a prominent doctor in Louisville, Kentucky, who some years ago got some plants from us and some filbert plants from some other nursery. We had a letter from him the other day in which he spoke in most complimentary terms of the plants he had gotten from us, that they had fruited, were true, and he wanted to know if we could furnish him from fifteen hundred to two thousand plants within the next few years. William Rockefeller on the Hudson, another customer of ours, reports plants doing splendidly and fruiting well. Mrs. Jones of Jones & Laughlin Steel Company reports plants growing splendidly there. Those are just a few of the instances I could cite. As I suggested to some of the gentlemen today at the next meeting it might be well for me to bring specific references from different parts of the country where our plants have been planted and are bearing fruit and are doing well, with no reference whatever to blight having appeared, and I shall be very glad to do that.

* * * * *

It seems to me, too, that the filbert is one of the best nut producing plants for use here in the North. Usually it is grown in bush form. It is very hearty and begins to bear early and abundantly under proper care. In view of the exceptionally wide range of climates and soils it seems to be one of the good nut producing plants for this association. Now it can be consistently considered that I have an ax to grind as I am producing filbert plants for sale, but I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that it is not with this thought in mind that I make these references. I have the interests of this association very much at heart. My whole time and attention and money is given to nut culture. I am extensively interested in the culture of paper shell pecans in Georgia. Successfully, I might also add. And I want to be equally successful with the filbert because I believe that it is the one great nut bearing plant that this association can stand back of and urge the people to plant, not because I am producing them but because I am a member of this association, and I want to see this association a success.

Three weeks ago last Monday, on account of my interest in pecan culture in the South, and having a good crop at our grove this year, I went to New York and spent the day there conferring with a big commission man down in the Washington Street section who handles large consignments of nuts. The subject of the filbert was discussed and I found a very great interest on the subject. They were one and all, I think I can say, appalled when I told them that there was a nursery in New York State producing filbert plants and filbert nuts. Mr. James, vice-president of the Higgins & James Company, showed me a very fine filbert, a variety with some unpronounceable name, I think Italian, and he said, "Isn't it a beauty?" It was. But when I told him that we had just as fine in Rochester and some finer he looked aghast. I invited him to come to Rochester and be convinced. He told me, as others did, that there was a wonderful future for the filbert in this country.

The filbert, too, I think, is especially adapted for waste lands on farms. A great many farms have considerable areas of waste land which, I believe, could be made very profitable by the planting of the filbert, because just ordinary farm soil with ordinary fertilization, according to our experiments, demonstrates that the filbert will make "the desert to bloom as the rose." And it is a beautiful shrub for ornamental purposes. Come to Rochester and go down to Jones Square, and you will see a beautiful border of the purple filbert. Some of our customers are purchasing it, William Rockefeller for instance and Mrs. Jones, for the borders of walks and drives. I think that we should try to reach the gardeners and the agricultural and horticultural societies of the country in our campaign for the furtherance of nut culture.

In Dr. Kellogg's recent list of diets, fruit and grain and vegetables, covering two pages of his pamphlet, he gives there as the food value of the pecan in protein, fats, and carbo-hydrates 207.8, and next to them the filbert, 207.5, and next the English walnut at 206.8, and next to that the almond, at 191.1.

MR. BIXBY: I really think that Mr. McGlennon has done more than anybody else to get the filbert on a practicable basis. He has also mentioned why the association has been a little bit cautious in saying too much about the filbert. In some of the early plantings the blight made serious inroads. There has been a lot learned about the blight since that time and apparently it can be controlled by cutting out the blighted portions. I have seen filberts in certain sections of the country where the blight went half way around the twig. Apparently that can be controlled by cutting out that blighted portion. Or, if the worst came to the worst, by cutting off the limb. But there have been a number of filbert plantings made the last few years where that blight has not appeared at all. One of the greatest difficulties with the European filberts was that while the bushes would grow all right they would not fruit, or fruit only once in a few years. Mr. McGlennon, when he imported those plants from Germany, apparently took all the varieties the man had. I believe that is one reason why Mr. McGlennon is raising filberts when most of the plantings of one bush, or two bushes of one kind have failed. He has enough varieties to properly pollinate the hazel flowers. That is a thing that must be borne in mind. Any one wanting to plant filberts must not ask what is the best filbert and plant one. He must say, what are the best filberts, and plant several varieties. I believe that is one of the things that has enabled Mr. McGlennon to raise filberts when many previous attempts have failed.

MR. MCGLENNON: Replying to Mr. Bixby's remarks they are well taken. I overlooked mentioning in my talk a fact, because I believe it is a fact, that it is due to the number of varieties we have that every variety has fruited. Now they are in the nursery and the principal consideration is wood. We are working every plant for wood. We have not been able to supply the demand for plants and won't be for another year or two. Next year I shall probably have ten to twelve thousand plants. We layered some twenty-five thousand plants last year, and we are layering some twenty-five thousand this year. Mr. Vollertsen has been very persistent with regard to the maintenance of the smaller nut varieties, has insisted upon it, because we have found that they are very much freer bloomers than the larger fruited varieties. We have made up our selection, as catalogued, carefully to that end, including some of the smaller fruit varieties. A party asked me the other day if I would send them a plant this fall. I said, "No, but I will send you three plants," meaning one of the small fruit and two of the larger fruit. It is the larger fruit that the consumer is going to demand. He is going to buy the larger nut, although the smaller nut is really better for eating.

Convention adjourned until 9:30 a. m., October 7, 1921.



MORNING SESSION

Friday, October 7, 1921

The Convention was called to order at ten o'clock by President Linton.

THE PRESIDENT: The first on our program this morning will be the report of the Committee on Uniform Bill for Roadside Planting. I will ask the chairman, Mr. Littlepage, to make the report.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: The committee met last night after adjournment and considered different methods of getting this bill (a copy of which I now present) before the various states, and after some deliberation it was decided to report, on behalf of the committee, as follows:

That the committee,—the same committee which has been appointed,—be authorized by the association to prepare in proper and simple form a sufficient number of copies of this bill, to be accompanied by a letter, formulated by the committee, which letter will set out substantially three things:

First: Call the governor's attention to the fact that this bill is the one adopted by the State of Michigan, but that it should, of course, be modified to comply with the special judicial or road machinery of each particular state.

Secondly: A short argument in behalf of this character of legislation.

Thirdly: A request to each governor that he refer the bill to his attorney general to put it in proper form to fit into the machinery of his particular state, and that he also refer it to his appropriate state board of forestry, agriculture or what-not.

We suggest, as I said before, that this committee be authorized to prepare a letter along those lines, to be accompanied by a copy of the bill, and that, after it is prepared and ready, it be sent out by either the president or the secretary of the association. It was also thought by the committee to be desirable, at the same time that this is sent to the governor of each state, to send copies to the various agricultural and horticultural journals of the respective states, that being done with the view of getting some publicity. Then, too, the committee thought that it might be well, at that time, for the respective members of the association in these various states to write to their representatives in the legislature calling attention to this bill.

Now that is the report of the committee, and, Mr. President, I move that this report be adopted and the committee instructed to act along those lines.

(Motion seconded and carried, and the report of the committee was adopted unanimously.)

THE PRESIDENT: Now, ladies and gentlemen, I consider that we have performed a most important task in the pioneer work connected with roadside planting in America. There is no question but that with this association the idea first originated; and the work to date along those lines in the United States has been brought about by the Northern Nut Growers' Association. It is a work in which I, personally as well as officially, as you know, have been greatly interested and the unanimous adoption of the committee's report, endorses that line of work. I wish to thank you, individually and collectively, for your interest and the action which you have taken.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I feel that our president in this instance has hit a high-water mark. He has taken hold of a very important idea and has developed it. After making an observation or two I am going to move a vote of appreciation to our president and accompany it with a vote of thanks to Senator Penney for coming down here from Michigan and lending his aid and enthusiasm.

We listened last night to a discussion about this roadside planting. As I observed before it is not without its difficulties the same as everything else; but this proposition extends to the various state boards of horticulture, highway, or what-not, one of the greatest and finest opportunities. Personally I believe in nut trees; but you must first get the public with you. Suppose you had a highway into Lancaster lined on either side for a half mile with pink weigelias in the spring. You would have the whole population going up and down that highway looking at the display. And the pink weigelia is almost a fool-proof shrub. It grows without cultivation and grows very rapidly and blooms in the greatest profusion. Suppose in mid-summer you had another highway lined with hydrangeas. I believe a particular one that is hardy is called paniculata grandiflora. It is a fool-proof shrub also, requires very little care and comes on after the other flowers go. It also can be produced very cheaply. You would have the population looking at and admiring the blooms and it would inspire, in each one of those individuals, a desire to go and do likewise. Suppose you had a half mile of sweet gum trees. If you go down through the counties of Pennsylvania now you will see the sweet gums—some of them a deep dark purple, some of them a bright golden yellow, some of them red, some of them with all the colors and all summer a beautiful foliage—suppose you had a half mile of those leading into a street of any city in America. The population on Sunday would drive out there and admire their beauty. It affords a wonderful opportunity. The individuals who care for those trees and shrubs, while moving up and down the highway caring for them, will be carrying with them a little university of horticultural knowledge. The average farmer thinks it is a terrible thing to spray. It is the simplest thing in the world as you know. This machinery by which these trees and plants and shrubbery would be cared for would be a moving university up and down the highway teaching the farmers how to care for their trees. Mr. Rush's trees which we saw yesterday were the finest examples of well cared for trees. You could not travel over the country and find trees showing a finer degree of care. Nobody could look at those trees without feeling that he would rather give a little more care to his trees. So that, if this idea is carried out, as it will be, it will become popular with the various state boards. They like to do things that are popular or that please the people.

As I said at the commencement of my remarks I am going to take the liberty of moving a vote of deep appreciation to the president (Mr. Linton), and also a vote of thanks to Senator Penney.

(Motion seconded and carried unanimously.)

THE PRESIDENT: I desire to thank you, one and all, for this vote of appreciation. My connection with the Northern Nut Growers' Association has been of a most pleasant character. I have found a group of men and of women who are interested not only in their own welfare but in the welfare of the race. What we have started today—or rather completed so far as organization is concerned—will do as much good in the United States in the next decade as any movement that has been started by any organization or association. It means re-forestation on a larger scale with right trees and right plants, as stated by my friend Mr. Littlepage. A new start will be made along those lines. The poor trees will be cast aside and the next generation will have trees and bushes and plants that not only will be beautiful to the eye but will be beneficial to mankind and to those birds and animals that we desire to have around us.

The greatest credit should be given to those of this association who in a scientific way have endeavored to bring about better varieties of nuts, better varieties of the products of trees, and their names certainly should go down in history with that of Burbank, or with those of other men who have devoted their lives to this kind of advancement. I am sure that will be the result. I know that as the message goes down along the line to the various states, their efforts will at least be recognized as having been beneficial and advantageous to all.

I want again to thank every one of you for the kindness that you have extended towards me and to my colleague, Senator Penney, who is most actively engaged in this work. Situated as he was—a most prominent member of the Michigan legislature—he was able to promote the very work in our Wolverine State that we today are undertaking to bring about in the United States, and I would call upon Senator Penney to say a word in this connection.

SENATOR PENNEY: Mr. President, it seems to me that after all these remarks have been made, this subject has been very well covered. I was very much interested in the remarks of Mr. Littlepage because he spoke of different ornamental trees and shrubs with which I am not familiar and which are not grown in our part of the country.

Our esteemed president, Mr. Linton, is doing wonderful work up in Saginaw at the present time in conjunction with our superintendent of public parks. He is helping to lay out some of our parks and to plant trees and shrubs there. One gentleman of Saginaw furnished the means to buy one thousand trees and the matter was put in charge of Mr. Linton to see that they were properly planted. This work and similar work that Mr. Linton and I have undertaken to promote and to push. We have done similar things in regard to the promotion of good highways. We have absolutely no interest in stone quarries or gravel pits or in any kind of contracts for the building of roads; yet we have spent several hundred dollars or more in going about Michigan giving talks at different meetings and promoting roads. One of the things that Mr. Linton tried to promote was this tree planting bill. Inasmuch as I was in the legislature I had the opportunity of helping to put this work across. We have a wonderfully good highway commissioner in our state. He is enthusiastic over this proposition. While our bill was passed just a short time ago, he has already planted eighteen miles of trees in one locality, and, he said, at very little cost. Just think what might be done throughout the United States. Suppose the prominent highways throughout the United States were planted with useful and ornamental trees, beautiful shrubs and things of that kind. Wouldn't it be a wonderfully beautiful and useful thing for the country?

In closing I wish to thank Mr. Littlepage and the other members of this association for the very kind treatment we have received here.

THE PRESIDENT: We are fortunate in having a paper that was prepared and will be presented by our esteemed treasurer Mr. Bixby, and I take pleasure in calling upon him at this time.

WHERE MAY THE NORTHERN PECAN BE EXPECTED TO BEAR

Willard G. Bixby, Baldwin, Nassau Co., N. Y.

In the January 1916 issue of the American Nut Journal is an article by Meredith P. Reed read before the Western Association of Nurserymen at their annual meeting in Kansas City, Mo., December 1915 entitled the Pecan Areas of the United States, describing the limits between which the pecan may be grown. In this paper the matter of the Pecan Belts of the country are discussed and their extent determined pretty largely by the length of the season (in average years), that is by the number of days between the latest spring frosts and the earliest fall frosts. A map was shown on which these areas were marked out, and it has been very useful to the writer in answering inquiries from persons who want to know if pecans can be grown in a given section.

Mr. John Garretson, Aspers, Adams Co., Penn., has on his place bearing Stuart and Schley pecans, two of the standard southern varieties. These bear nuts of typical shape but which are only a fraction of the size that these nuts would be if grown in southern Georgia. This clearly shows that some of the standard southern pecans require something which they do not get at Aspers to enable them to properly mature their nuts. The trees stand the cold of winter but the fruit does not properly mature. Mr. Jones has suggested that it is heat that is lacking and has advanced the idea that even though the trees are hardy to winter cold they have not sufficient summer heat at Aspers to enable them to mature their crops. This has brought up the question as to whether there was any method of measuring the summer heat available for causing pecan nuts to grow and mature.

Observations on northern pecans (and some southern ones) on my place at Baldwin caused me to note that no pecans started to vegetate at Baldwin before May. May is the first spring month here when the pecan will leave out. May is also the first spring month when the average monthly temperature here will reach 50 deg.F. It occurred to me that if we note the excess average monthly temperatures over 50 deg. and sum these items for a season we would get what might be termed a figure for "pecan growing heat units." This figure of 50 deg. is doubtless capable of some refinement. There is no reason to suppose that further study may not show that it should be somewhat more or less but it is the best we have so far and seemingly it is proving useful.

If we calculate these figures for Evansville, Ind., for 1914, for example, and show the method of doing it we will have

Average Monthly Average Monthly Temp. 1914 Temperatures in Excess of 50 deg.

January 39.6 February 29.9 March 42.0 April 55.4 5.4 May 67.9 17.9 June 80.0 30.0 July 82.2 32.2 August 78.0 28.0 September 69.6 19.6 October 60.8 10.8 November 49.2 December 31.0

Total 143.9

The pecan growing heat units, pecan units they may be called for short, for Evansville, Ind., in 1914 were 143.9. From this we might conclude that a place where the pecan units for 1914 would figure out 143.9 would be likely (as far as climatic conditions are concerned) to grow pecans as well as Evansville, that is, of course if other years should show similar figures.

With the idea of seeing if the experience of those who were growing pecans would be anything like what might be calculated from the Weather Bureau Records, letters were written to all members of the National Nut Growers' Association to find out if pecans grew and bore well in their sections and if so which varieties. From the replies received it has been in a number of instances difficult to judge just how well pecans grow in some sections. For this reason I have interpreted the replies somewhat on the basis of my own knowledge and on certain facts told me by Mr. C. A. Reed. Apparently at least 175 pecan units are to be found in most places where the southern pecan is successful commercially. This corresponds to a line through Augusta, Milledgeville, Macon and Columbus, Georgia and Montgomery, Alabama. There seems little question but that pecans can be grown north of this line but until I get more positive information than I now have I shall doubt if the planting of southern varieties of pecans much north of this line is nearly as advisable as it is south of it.

When we come to compare this figure with the pecan units for Ocean Springs and Pascagoula, Miss., where a number of the fine southern pecans originated which are now being propagated we find an average of about 222 pecan units. To reduce this to a percentage we find that many of the standard southern pecans grow and bear well when the pecan units are as low as 79% of those of the place of their origin. In other words the adaptability of the southern pecan is 79%, that is it will grow and bear well where the pecan units are as low as 79% of those of the place of its origin or to use rough figures, 80%.

When we come to ascertain the pecan units of the locations where the northern pecan grows and bears well we will consider Evansville and Vincennes, Ind., as places where it bears well; Burlington, Ia., as a place where it does quite well, but not as well, as in Evansville; Clinton, Ia., as a place where trees are growing well but where they bear a large crop only once in several years; and Charles City, Ia., as a place where the pecan does not mature its nuts. The pecan units are also shown for several important places outside of the native pecan area.

Highest Lowest Average

Evansville, Ind. (1919) 147.5 (1917) 116.4 135.7 Vincennes, Ind. (1914) 144.7 (1918) 123.1 130.8 Burlington, Ia. (1914) 125.8 (1917) 90.2 108.4 Clinton, Ia. (1914) 109.2 (1917) 75.3 94.9 Charles City, Ia. (1914) 91.2 (1915) 65.4 78.5 New York City (1914) 101.2 (1917) 85.2 94.3 Lancaster, Penn. (1919) 108.7 (1917) 84.9 98.4 Gettysburg, Penn. (1919) 108.4 (1916) 89.4 100.7 Cincinnati, O. (1914) 131.7 (1917) 88.9 109.5 Baltimore, Md. (1919) 127.2 (1917) 106.7 121.0 Washington, Md. (1918) 126.8 (1917) 104.7 119.3 Hartford, Conn. (1919) 88.9 (1917) 74.8 85.1

If we consider that Evansville and Vincennes are the center of the pecan district near which most varieties have originated and that a place should have 80% as many pecan units as in this Evansville district in order to have the northern pecan do well, a place should have 105 pecan units in order for one to feel reasonably certain that the northern pecan will do well there. It will be both interesting and instructive to see how well the applications that may be made from the conclusions compare with observed facts.

We know that there are large numbers of pecan trees at Burlington, Ia., and that the trees grow and bear well. Its pecan units are 108.4. We should conclude that at Baltimore and Washington with pecan units at 121.0 and 119.3 respectively that pecans would grow and bear well. There are pecan trees over 100 years old at Marietta, Md., which is half way between Baltimore and Washington. These trees bear nuts and although it has not been possible to get bearing records it is evident that they bear considerably for on the roads of that vicinity are hundreds of young pecan trees which evidently came up from nuts borne by these old trees. We should expect the pecan to do well at Cincinnati, O. In fact I have been expecting to find it native there, but, so far all inquiries have failed to do so. At Fayetteville, however, which is about 40 miles east of Cincinnati and somewhat north of it, are bearing pecan trees raised from seed brought from Shawneetown, Ill., which is in the Evansville district. Seed from these Fayetteville trees planted at Baldwin have shown nearly 100% germination.

There is some question as to how well pecans should bear at Gettysburg, and Lancaster, Penn., and at New York City where the pecan units are much like those at Clinton, Ia., where, on forest pecan trees, we get a fair crop but once in several years. Perhaps with our present knowledge these places should be considered on the borderland between the country where the pecan is likely to do well and that where it will not mature its nuts. We know that pecan trees have borne nuts at Aspers, Pa., near Gettysburg, at Lancaster, Pa., and at Westbury and Glen Cove, Long Island, near New York City but so far it has not been possible to make sufficient observations to form definite conclusions as to what to expect. It seems quite likely that fertilization and care may help materially the maturing of crops in those sections which in our present knowledge we must consider on the borderland.

Probably we should not expect pecan nuts to be borne at Charles City, Ia., where pecan units are but 60% of those at Vincennes, and pecan units at Hartford, Conn., are not so very different. There are northern pecan trees at Charles City, Ia., which many years ago were brought there, but the information I have about them is that they have never borne. There is a large pecan tree at Hartford, Conn., but I have never been able to learn of its bearing nuts.

As the northern pecan trees now being planted get to bearing age we shall have actual experimental data as to what they will do in the different sections. Until that time by the method outlined herein and with the Weather Bureau Records for several years at hand inquiries regarding its probable adaptability for a given section can be answered with far more confidence than was possible heretofore.

* * * * *

THE PRESIDENT: Is there any discussion upon the excellent paper just read by our treasurer?

MR. JORDAN: May I ask if, according to that theory, the Stuart and the Schley would not be expected to do well in Washington?

MR. BIXBY: I should say not. My intention was to indicate roughly a dividing line between where the pecan would be an important commercial crop and where it would not. We know the Stuart pecan bears pretty well at Petersburg, Virginia; it bears at Aspers, Pa., which is near Gettysburg, but the nuts are a fraction of the normal size and not very well filled.

THE SECRETARY: We all appreciate the amount of work that is represented by this report of Mr. Bixby and how valuable it is from a scientific as well as from a practical point of view. I wonder if it could be made more useful if Mr. Bixby could make a little map showing the isothermal lines on the basis that he has followed in his investigation.

MR. BIXBY: That could be done in a very general way, but altitude makes such a difference that there would be many places included in any belt at which, probably, certain pecans would not grow nor would not mature. It is very evident that local conditions make a great difference. I should say that a map to be useful would probably have a series of dots all over the country indicating what pecans would be best grown in that section; and while that would, to a certain extent, form belts yet there could be selected many places in any one belt where another pecan would be preferable.

MR. J. W. RITCHIE: I started in this nut-growing business knowing nothing about it. I found that there were men in it who had been working at it for years who knew many things that I wanted to know. They forgot that I knew nothing and that I might want to know some of the things that they had in their minds which gave them a background. I think there ought to be some way by which all this knowledge that we have can be brought together so that a beginner could pay a dollar or a dollar and a half or, if necessary, two or three dollars and get it all at once. I have visited Washington and have seen Mr. Littlepage. He showed me some Kentucky hickories and Stabler walnuts and I then decided that if I could raise any nuts there would be no trouble about selling them. I can sell just as many of those nuts as I can produce; but yet I do not know a thing about how many nuts will grow on a Kentucky hickory in one year. If you will lay the facts before me and let me judge them I will take the risk myself. I do not want anybody to tell me whether to plant nuts or not to plant them. I will decide that question for myself if you will give me the data to work on. I want a book that will give me the varieties. I want to know what particular nuts can be put out in this region here that would have a chance of commercial success. Then I would like to know as much as I possibly can about those varieties, their respective qualities, what they will produce and especially how to propagate them. I happen to have a place where there are a great many walnuts, butternuts and hickories. I would like to know, in detail, how to propagate those nuts. In a conversation with the secretary he spoke of northern pecans. I have read about the Marquardt, the Burlington and the Witte. I do not know whether the term "northern" included those three or not.

TREASURER BIXBY: I would be very useful if I could directly answer a good many of the questions that are asked. A great many people would like to know the pecan they can plant in their sections and be sure of success. That I would like to tell them. I do not have the information. It is frequently more difficult to answer questions than to ask them.

Regarding the Burlington and the Witte pecans, they come from the most northern section where good pecans have been found, where the heat units are the lowest. They come from Burlington, Iowa, where the heat units are 180, if I remember correctly. If we assume a place where the heat units are 80 per cent of those at Burlington, those pecans should grow and mature there. They would probably do fairly well in New York City. I think we might feel justified in saying that they would not do well at Charles City, Iowa, because pecans from near that section, or back north of that section, have been growing for twenty-five or thirty years, and have not fruited. There the pecan units are very low, only 78. It would seem reasonable that at places where the pecan units are somewhat over 90, including New York City, Lancaster, southern Pennsylvania, and of course practically all sections south of it, they ought to do well. Those are the safest pecans, the Marquardt, the Burlington, the Witte, and the Green Bay, to plant in the northern section.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: The Stuart pecan originally stood within fifty feet of the Gulf of Mexico. There is where it originated. It is one of the leading southern nuts; and yet I saw a Stuart bearing nuts in Mr. Roper's orchard down at Petersburg, Virginia. It has grown beautifully. There is a strictly southern pecan, nurtured by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which has the widest latitude. You can find the same thing up north. The fact that the Burlington grows at Burlington, Iowa, means this, that it ought to grow in all similar latitudes, or else violate known laws of horticulture. But it does not mean that some other pecan that grew 250 miles south of that might not grow still further north. The questions asked are important. Why does not the association, just as fast as it gets information, stick a pin there and fasten it down? For example, will pecan trees grow, say, on the thirty-ninth parallel, which runs through my grove down in Maryland. They will. Will they bear? There is one Major there that has this summer fifty pecans on it; another one there with perhaps a dozen. On the 27th day of March of this year, which was Easter Sunday, the temperature dropped sixty-eight degrees in twenty-four hours. It is a wonder it did not kill the forest trees. But with all that the pecan stood there just as hardy as the oak. It destroyed some of the ends of the swelling buds, not the dormant buds but some of those that had begun to swell a little, and that no doubt affected the crop or we would have had, perhaps, all the varieties, the Butterick, the Warrick, the Niblack, the Busseron, the Major, and the Green River fruiting. Do we want to grow a Major? I do not know. But the man that makes the mistake is the man who fails to set nut trees. How about the Stabler walnut bearing? It bore matured nuts at the age of four years on my farm in Maryland this year. The nuts are here. That answers that question. I have very grave doubts about pecan trees thriving in the Lancaster latitude; yet it may be that I am wrong about that. There may be some particular variety that will thrive here. If I lived in this section I would set out the trees so that when the one, two, three or four varieties are found that will thrive here we will have something to work on. There isn't any question about the black walnut or filbert thriving here, or the hickory, because we find them growing. If you go through southern Michigan and northern Indiana, you will see the shagbark hickory by the thousands growing along the railroad. This association should endeavor to get some affirmative data and distribute it among its members.

I have a row of Indian hazels. I put them on the side of my garage to make a sort of a screen because they grow those big crinkling pretty leaves. That row is probably fifteen feet long. If I had forty acres of those hazels with the same quantity of nuts on that are on there this year I could buy another farm.

MR. OLCOTT: I would like to ask about Evansville, Indiana.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Evansville, Indiana, is almost exactly on the thirty-eighth parallel. The Busseron pecan tree grows almost exactly on the thirty-ninth parallel which is the northern boundary of the District of Columbia. The big orange groves in California are at the Lancaster latitude, which shows just how such things twist and turn, how difficult it is to learn them and why it is going to take a lot of experience to work them out.

THE SECRETARY: I knew that Mr. Jones was a very patient and a very courteous gentleman; but I did not suppose that his patience and his courtesy would enable him to sit there for nearly a half hour with, lying in his lap unopened, the new book on nut culture which has just been published by Dr. Morris, probably the first copy that you or I have seen. I see that Mr. Jones has finally yielded to temptation and has uncovered the book. Perhaps that is the book that will supply Mr. Ritchie's needs. I mention it now because I think that you all ought to know that such a book has been published by Dr. Morris and that it can be bought of the MacMillan Company, Publishers, of New York City.

MR. MCGLENNON: I think Mr. Jones has overlooked the following on the fly leaf of Dr. Morris's book:

"_To J. F. Jones, first authority in the world today on the subject of nut growing. With the compliments of one of his pupils, Robert T. Morris.

"New York, October 3, 1921_"

(Applause).

THE PRESIDENT: If there is no further discussion along this particular line, we will now receive the report of the committee on grades of membership.

TREASURER BIXBY: The committee recommends that Article II of the By-Laws be amended so as to read as follows:

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

It was moved and seconded that the report of the committee be adopted and the amendment to the by-laws made as therein recommended.

(Motion carried unanimously).

THE TREASURER: I would like to give notice of our intention, at the next regular meeting, of moving to amend Article III of the Constitution, by adding to the same the following:

"There shall be four classes of members: Annual, contributing, life and honorary. Annual, contributing and life members shall be entitled to all rights and privileges of the association. Honorary members shall be entitled to all rights and privileges of the association, excepting those of holding office and voting at meetings."

THE PRESIDENT: Notice has been duly made and will be filed in the proceedings of the session.

We have with us Prof. F. N. Fagan to whom I am sure you will be glad to listen at this time in connection with the work that is being carried on at State College with which institution he is connected.

PROFESSOR FAGAN: At the Rochester meeting we reported on an English walnut survey that was made in Pennsylvania. Since that time we have not done anything except with Mr. Jones's and Mr. Rush's help, to gather information about the parent trees of which we located definitely about three thousand and indefinitely probably two thousand more. All of these trees but one were in bearing. They were seedling trees and as much variation was found in the trees as we would naturally expect to find in seedling trees. Our problem is to determine the trees worthy of propagation. It is necessary also to solve better the propagation problem. We cannot expect to get any large amount of planting of any of our nut trees until we can put the trees to the public at a price at which it will feel that it can afford to invest. To the members of this association, or to other people vitally interested, two or two and a half or three dollars is not anything for a good tree; but to the average planter of home ground or farmstead that is too much money. We all know that it is not an easy task to propagate these trees and we are not condemning the nurserymen. We know that they cannot afford to grow a budded or a grafted tree of known parentage for any less. So the problem of propagation is one of the largest that we have before us, and it is one to which our station and I myself are giving all the thought and time that we can.

We realize the importance of the nut industry in the state if for no more than roadside and home planting. Whether commercial planting will extend through the north with our black walnuts, our butternuts, our hickories and our English walnuts, to the extent that it has in the south with the pecan, is a question which time alone can solve.

We now have new land at the station suitable for the planting of nut trees. It is going to be the best land that we have on our new farm and we hope next spring to make a collection planting of varieties. We have not much money but we can make a start. It is not going to be at a place that will be set aside and not cared for. It is going to be along the public road, where we will have to take care of it or we will be criticised.

Until we solve our problems of selection and propagation we will go along at a fair rate of increase in regard to our plantings; but we will not reach the man who has a piece of ground and who says, "I would like to plant that ground in walnuts, maybe fifteen or twenty trees but I cannot put thirty dollars into those trees, or twenty dollars when I can buy apple trees for twenty cents."

Yet the future looks just as bright to me as it did the day I started to make the English walnut survey, just as bright because we will overcome these obstacles.

I might close by saying that while we are ready at the college and at the experiment station to go ahead we are not ready to plunge into any extensive experiments. It requires money and the money does not come in such quantities that we can plunge into anything in fact. But we are ready to begin to build a foundation on which we expect later on to experiment, and I hope that in ten more years, or in nine more years, if this association comes back to Pennsylvania, we can invite them to the experiment station to see what foundations we have laid and what progress we have made in the experimental work of nut culture.

THE PRESIDENT: Will there be any discussion on the subject so ably covered by Prof. Fagan? Are there any questions that you desire to ask the Professor?

THE SECRETARY: I would like to ask Prof. Fagan if he has a good word to say for the English walnut in Pennsylvania and in other parts of the country as a profitable tree to plant, from the result of his inspection of the trees of the state.

PROF. FAGAN: We get a letter probably on an average of once a week, from some one in the State of Pennsylvania who wants to plant anywhere from five acres to a hundred acres in English walnuts. We tell him to go slow, to feel his ground out pretty well and to remember that he is planting a tree that is a greater feeder, probably, than any other fruit tree; that it must have food or it won't grow; and instead of planting a hundred acres to plant maybe half an acre and select the best varieties that information at the present time indicates, those that lived through the winter of 1917-1918.

We have seedling trees in Pennsylvania, that probably date back to near revolutionary war times; in fact there are some around Germantown that no doubt were growing at the time of the revolutionary war, around the old Germantown Academy. Personally I would not hesitate to plant as good an acre of land as there is in Lancaster County, or ten or twenty or fifty acres, to the better types of English walnuts that we have today. It probably would not be profitable in my time; I do not know; but it certainly would be profitable in the lifetime of my children. I would not, however, want to plant the nuts on cheap and poor mountain land where the most of our larger plantings, even of chestnut, have been made throughout the country, on land that was not worth the attention of other crops. When people write to us that they have certain types of land we always tell them if they can grow an average crop of corn, wheat, clover or potatoes on that land there probably isn't any question but that if they plant English walnuts they will be successful in raising some English walnuts. Whether they will raise them profitably or not is another question. But nothing can take the place of one or two good trees on every farm, especially in southeastern Pennsylvania. There isn't much question but that those trees can be grown successfully from a line through Allentown to the Susquehanna River, and on over to the general range of the Allegheny Mountains, down to the Mainland and West Virginia line. Even in our higher elevations of sixteen or eighteen hundred feet I can show you some good old bearing trees that are ten or twelve inches in diameter. No dwelling houses there. They are out in the country and they are high up.

THE SECRETARY: As has been stated the essential thing in the successful growing of Persian walnuts, and probably other nuts, is high fertilization. I believe that many of our failures to grow the Persian walnut are due to lack of sufficient food.

THE TREASURER: I do not suppose that any one in the association has made more of an effort to get better records than I have—at least I have made a good deal of effort. I have learned that in 1916, if I remember correctly, the Stabler bore sixteen bushels of hulled nuts and it was estimated that two were washed away by the rains. In another year, I was informed the Weiker tree bore twelve bushels. In following up other trees I found it impossible to get any results. I tried to get information as to the parent Hales hickory and the most I could learn was that the family had gathered as high as two or three bushels in one year. But when I saw that the tree stood on the side of a well traveled road with only a low stone wall to get over, and that the squirrels were plentiful and the children undoubtedly likewise, I thought it a wonder that the Hales got any of the nuts.

In the case of most of our fine parent nut trees they are either situated in out-of-the-way places where it is a task to get to them, or else they are situated on the side of a traveled road where the passersby are pretty likely to get a great many of the nuts.

Take the case of the Fairbanks hickory in Alamosa, Iowa. It stands on the side of the road on top of a hill outside of the limit of the houses of the town. I do not see how it can help being that a great proportion of the nuts are picked up by passersby. When we have grafted trees planted where they can be protected and the crop can be watched we can get reliable data for our records; but I am afraid that except in a few instances, we cannot get such data for the parent trees.

MR. RUSH: California is the leader in the Persian walnut industry and I think it would be better for us to fall in line and adopt some of their varieties. I find that they are perfectly hardy here, just as hardy as are varieties that have been grown here for a hundred years.

MR. L. N. SPENCER: Right back of the postoffice are some English walnut trees. They are growing very nicely. They have withstood all kinds of weather. I have not noticed any dead limbs on the trees nor any other indications that the climate here is not adapted to the growing of these trees. We would be glad indeed to show you the trees if you would come to the postoffice. They are not on ground belonging to the United States government but on private ground.

I have been very much interested in your discussion. I came here because I expect to set out some more nut trees.

THE PRESIDENT: There are two items of business left for the convention. One is, receiving the report of the nominating committee; the other is, to determine upon a place for holding our next convention. If there is nothing further to be brought before the session by the members these two items will now receive our consideration. The first of the two would be the report of the nominating committee.

MR. OLCOTT: Your nominating committee respectfully reports the following nominations for officers of the Northern Nut Growers' Association for the coming fiscal year:

President—James S. McGlennon, Rochester, N. Y. Vice-President—J. F. Jones, Lancaster, Pa. Secretary—William C. Deming, Wilton, Conn. Treasurer—Willard G. Bixby, Baldwin, N. Y.

Your committee begs leave to suggest that as the details of an aggressive campaign to increase the membership of the Association entail a considerable amount of correspondence and other work, the Secretary should be relieved to as great an extent as is practicable, and to that end particular attention should be paid to the selection of a Membership Committee. It is the belief that this is one of the most important committees of the Association and that systematic endeavor upon definite lines should be made to extend the membership; that this work should begin at once and be maintained earnestly throughout the coming fiscal year.

RALPH T. OLCOTT, J. F. JONES, JOHN RICK, C. S. RIDGWAY, Committee.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I move the adoption of the report.

(Motion seconded and carried, and the officers therein referred to were declared elected.)

THE PRESIDENT: The second item is to determine the place of the next meeting. A motion would be in order covering that.

THE TREASURER: Inasmuch as we have in Rochester, New York, an orchard of filberts which is beginning to bear real crops—and that is something none of us has ever seen—if Rochester would like to have us come I move that we go there next year.

MR. OLCOTT: Rochester would like to have you come.

MR. MCGLENNON: I was going to ask that the convention be brought to Rochester next year. I would certainly like to see it there. I second Mr. Bixby's motion.

(Motion carried unanimously.)

It was moved and seconded that the next annual convention be held on September 7 and 8, 1922.

(Motion carried unanimously.)

MR. LITTLEPAGE moved (seconded by Mr. McGlennon) that Mr. Harrison H. Dodge, Superintendent of Mount Vernon, be elected an honorary member of this association.

(Motion carried unanimously.)

THE PRESIDENT: I desire to say that in this package I have four seedlings from the walnuts that were supplied from Mount Vernon. A few of the walnuts left from last year's supply were placed in the hands of a nurseryman or florist in Saginaw too late for planting—the ground had become frozen—and those few nuts be placed in pots in his greenhouse. They grew very vigorously and I have four of those in little earthen pots for planting this afternoon.

MR. MCGLENNON: I make a motion that a vote of thanks be extended to Dr. Morris and the others whose papers were read by our secretary yesterday morning and that they be notified accordingly.

SENATOR PENNEY: I second the motion.

(Motion carried unanimously.)

THE SECRETARY: I feel that we should express our appreciation of the efforts of the local committee and the management of this hotel. I therefore move a vote of thanks to Mr. Rush and Mr. Jones for their work in the management of this convention, and to the management of the hotel for the kindness they have shown us.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I second the motion.

(Motion carried unanimously.)

THE PRESIDENT: We will now adjourn to gather here at two o'clock in order to go on a sight-seeing trip or excursion around the city and county and then to Long's Park at 4:30 o'clock for the tree planting.



PROCEEDINGS OF THE TREE PLANTING CEREMONIES AT LONG'S PARK, LANCASTER COUNTY, PA.

4:30 p. m., October 7, 1921

PRESIDENT LINTON: The four young walnut trees that we have before us are grown from walnuts from trees at Mount Vernon near the tomb of General Washington. The trees there were planted unquestionably during the lifetime of Washington, and have grown to be fine specimens of their particular species. Last fall the ladies of the Mount Vernon Association gave to the Northern Nut Growers Association all of the walnuts upon the trees at Washington's home. They divided those nuts into two lots and the best ones were presented to the association for the purpose of public planting. Under no circumstances were the nuts to be commercialized or sold for gain but were to be planted by the school children of the land, if it could be satisfactorily arranged in the short time that we had before the end of the planting season. We found it impossible to distribute these walnuts throughout the country, although the demand kept coming for them from many states, so they were distributed first to the district schools outside of the city of Saginaw in the County of Saginaw and there planted by the school children with appropriate ceremonies. Then our city schools asked for them and in every school yard in the city of Saginaw are some Washington walnuts growing today. Following this distribution to the schools we had still several bushels of the nuts, and one bushel was presented to what is known as Merlin Grotto, a branch or division of the Masonic Order. As General Washington was a member of that organization it seemed fitting that that society should have some of the nuts. So in the beautiful grounds outside of our city that are owned and controlled by Merlin Grotto there were also planted some of these Mount Vernon walnuts. Then we still had about two dozen of them left, and they were planted in what is known as the Ezra Rush Park in Saginaw, our largest city park. They are there in rows to be transplanted this coming spring and will be again distributed to the schools, or to public places desiring them, as long as they may last. The four specimens that you have before you, gentlemen, are from nuts from trees planted during President Washington's time at his home. We trust that they may live in this beautiful park in Lancaster and that they may go down in history showing the source from whence they came.

PROF. HERBERT H. BECK: Gentlemen: It is a very great privilege to represent Franklin and Marshall College in extending a word of greeting as well as comradeship to the Northern Nut Growers' Association. I use the word comradeship advisedly because we have interests that are indubitably kindred. Our two institutions are both concerned with the cultivation of something that will contribute to the strength and happiness of each as Americans—your institution in the cultivation of useful trees—our institution in the cultivation of useful men. It may well be said, show me a man who loves and cultivates trees and I will show you a man who loves his fellow men and puts that love into practice. That cannot be said, unfortunately, of every man who graduates from college. It is to be doubted whether the name of John Harvey, considered abroad as worthy of a higher place in the annals of American horticulture, is greater than the name of Johnny Appleseed, the man who took apple trees out into the frontier of the open road. My only regret is that I have never been in a position to do so. I can say, though, with Dr. Holmes, for whose opinion on such things I have a most profound admiration, that I have an intense, passionate fondness for all trees in general and for certain trees in particular. When I go out among the trees I have a kinship there. I am never lonely when I am in a forest and I cannot say that when I am alone in a big city. I like to look upon an old tree as a patriarch with not only an honored past but an interesting story locked up under its bark. As I go to such a place as Valley Forge, I like to lay my hand on the rough bark of an old tree and say, "Oh, but that you might tell your tale; you are the only thing left which looked upon the scene in which a few were crucified that many might live." Such are the thoughts that come to me when I stand by an old tree. I like to let my mind run back to the beginnings of trees, to the pre-historic times when this bed rock was laid down, when all this region was an inlet or bay from the Atlantic Ocean and the upland was treeless as our rock record shows. Then there were the beginnings of low fern-like growth and clotted mass which gradually increased in size until they assumed the enormous proportions which made the coal beds possible. And then I like to follow the growth of trees on to the broad leaf. We have the beginnings of the broad leaf, the sassafras, the poplars, the maples, and the oaks, and then, as the crowning feature of the evolutionary process, the nut tree. I like to let my mind run ahead a bit, particularly at such a time as this when we are setting out new trees. What sort of people will these trees live to see? Will there be a decadence of the taste and fondness for trees, which we hope is growing? Will these trees live to see a race of people who take no interest in such things except a commercial one, who have no thought for the beauty of the trees nor for the rights of posterity? Will these trees perchance live to see an upheaval of the happy affairs which now exist in this country? In one hundred and fifty years many things can happen. There is much in the existing turmoil of war conditions that suggests possible disaster within the next couple of centuries, and possibly that the fair constitution of Franklin and Washington may be submerged in a chaos of something that means nothing. The remote possibility of the invasion of a conquering race to destroy all these things—but banish the thought. God grant, that these young trees may grow up to furnish shade and fruit in proper season to thousands of happy people, that they may always be useful and that they may not live to see the time when disaster may come to this fair land.

In closing, gentlemen, I wish to compliment you on what seems to me to be the excellence of your personnel and organization. I am strongly impressed with the fact that your organization has a prime scientific value as well as a profound practical significance. I congratulate you on these excellent qualities and traits of your association, wish you all success and thank you for the privilege you have given me.

DEAN R. L. WATTS: This seems to me almost like a sacred moment. As I stand here in this circle, the ground upheaved there and that hole in the ground, I think of something else that we stand around sometimes. In a very large degree, especially in considering the remarks of Professor Beck, it is a sacred occasion. What could be more sacred? What could we regard with greater solemnity than the planting of trees that will help all mankind.

Particularly in connection with the planting of young trees I think of my own boyhood experiences. Whenever I think of the boys and girls in the woods picking up nuts it is pretty hard for me to think of those boys and girls going wrong. One of the biggest things we have to look at in this country is the question of maintaining high standards of manhood and womanhood. In that the safety of our country rests.

I wonder why I was asked to speak at this meeting of the Nut Growers' Association. I do not know whether my friend Professor Fagan suggested that I be placed on the program or not. Perhaps he had heard about what happens in my own home. I have never gotten away from liking a little manual labor. I do not want too much of it but I do like a little of it, making garden and taking care of the furnace. Mrs. Watts sometimes blames me for wanting to take care of the furnace in the cellar in the winter time from the fact that I have always a bag of nuts down there. When I go down she hears me cracking nuts. From my earliest boyhood days I have been tremendously interested in the whole nut proposition. What I have to say here today I have put in written form.

A NATIONAL PROGRAM FOR THE PROMOTION OF NUT CULTURE

Dean Watts

I am highly honored in being invited to present a paper before the members of the Northern Nut Growers' Association.

For twelve years your association has stood for all that is good in American nut culture. You have considered the different classes and varieties that are worthy a place in American horticulture. You have discussed how the various classes may best be propagated and cultivated and have disseminated whatever information is available concerning the control of fungous and insect enemies of nut bearing trees. Some of your members have conducted investigations of great value to the industry and others have made a special study of the food value of nuts as compared with other standard foods. The eleven annual reports of the association are indicative of the broad field of study and service which has been covered by a zealous and enthusiastic body of nut specialists.

Surely there is no doubt in the mind of any member of this association concerning the importance of nut culture in the United States. From the standpoint of food alone, we are more than justified in waging a vigorous campaign for the planting of millions of trees. Who can mention any article of food that is more nutritious, more wholesome, more delicious than any and all of our native nuts as well as many imported species? And what other class of trees even approaches the nut as a dual purpose tree? In fact, as is well known, nut trees have four distinct values; namely, to furnish food, shade, timber and ornamentation to the landscape.

In view of the important place which nut trees should have in American horticulture, can we not manage in some way to plan and carry out a comprehensive national program for the promotion of this proposition? Surely there are thousands of people and hundreds of organizations and institutions of various kinds which would consider it a privilege to have a real part in such a worthy cause.

For one who has been a member of this association for only a few hours, it may seem a little presumptuous to even suggest a national program for the promotion of nut culture, to say nothing of what should constitute such a program. But, running the risk of someone hurling a chestnut burr at me, I will venture a few suggestions, though they may be as old as the sweetest of American nuts.

RESEARCH

The great fundamental need of all American agriculture is research. This statement applies to nut culture more than to any other branch of horticulture because it has received less attention from well trained investigators. Much credit is due the members of this association for their patient and painstaking studies. But instead of having a mere handful of men devoting their time to nut investigations, there ought to be several men in each state engaged in working on the numerous problems of vital importance to the nut industry.

Prof. Reed of the United States Department of Agriculture should have a staff of several specialists, in order that he might make greater progress in working out projects of national importance. The State Agricultural Experiment Stations have shown very little interest in this matter. Funds should be made available in each state to undertake nut investigations that promise results of economic value. However, if the United States Department of Agriculture and the State Experiment Stations are to make real expansion in nut investigations, there must be demands and outside pressure from prominent people; as for example, from the members of this association. More and more the farmers of the country are petitioning their Experiment Stations to make certain studies and it is unlikely that these institutions will do very much for the nut industry unless the rural population indicate that they want this line of work included in the experimental program.

Mr. President, cannot this association block out at least a tentative nut research program for the whole United States? What are the problems that should have first consideration? What do you think the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station should do for nut culture in this state? As Director of the Pennsylvania Station, I would like to have this question answered by the nut enthusiasts of the state. Dr. Fletcher and Prof. Fagan stand ready to carry out your wishes and I pledge them my heartiest co-operation. Many of you know that the Pennsylvania Station is now working under a great handicap financially, but this situation may change within a few years.

TEACHING

I have been wondering whether all of the Agricultural Colleges give instruction in nut culture. If they do, just how much consideration is given to this important matter. It is one thing to give a careful, thorough, systematic course, covering a whole term or semester but quite another proposition to give a few disconnected lectures. If a committee of this association could look into the matter and formulate a suggestive program for the Colleges, it would stimulate greater interest in the subject in all of the Agricultural Colleges.

In this connection let us not lose sight of the fact that the number of College boys on our farms is increasing very rapidly. Not long ago I attended a Farm Bureau meeting in Washington County, Pennsylvania, at which there were twenty-five to thirty young men who had taken Agricultural courses at The Pennsylvania State College. We can readily see what an opportunity it is to teach these College boys the benefits of planting nut bearing trees on their home places.

Again, we should manage in some way or other to permeate our town and rural schools with the nut planting spirit. Thousands and thousands of shade trees are planted where nut trees would be much more desirable. Every country school ground might well serve as a demonstration center of the best nut producing trees for that community. If such a scheme were carried out intelligently, our farmsteads would soon abound with nut trees. Let us not lose sight of the value of the demonstration idea in any nut propaganda work that may be undertaken.

EXTENSION SERVICE

The United States has the best and most wonderful system of Agricultural Extension of any country in the world. Are we using this system to extend the planting of nut bearing trees. Do we not know of classes and varieties which may be planted under suitable conditions that will be certain to give satisfactory results? If so, why not get this information in definite form before our County Agents and Farm Bureaus and let them pass it along to the soil tillers. Perhaps the time is not far off when the Colleges might appoint Nut Extension Specialists who would work through the County Agents and public schools and handle this matter in a thorough, effective, systematic manner. Surely we have the machinery for the dissemination of whatever knowledge is available relating to the selection, planting and care of nut bearing trees.

STATE DEPARTMENTS

All of the numerous State Departments of Agriculture, Forestry, Game Conservation, etc., in this and every other state should be vitally interested in the nut proposition. Perhaps some of the officials in these State Departments don't realize the possibilities of nut planting? Is there any way of educating them? For example, our Game Commissioners are worrying over the disappearance of the chestnut as a source of food for squirrels. Do they realize that the bush chinquapin might be substituted with success, in some sections at least? And why not get game and squirrel lovers and tree planters in general to enthuse about the planting of black walnuts with a liberal sprinkling of butternuts? The result would be food for the squirrels, for the kiddies and some for the old folks, besides useful timber trees and also beautiful roadsides and farmsteads.

THE PRESS

We ought to manage in some way to get more material relating to nuts published in country papers and magazines, especially in the farm papers. Millions of copies of the agricultural papers reach our farm homes every week. They are read largely by the boys and girls who are always very much interested in nuts.

STATE LAWS

I do not know how much can be accomplished by passing laws that will encourage the planting of nut bearing trees, especially along the roadside. All of us will watch with much interest the Penney Law of Michigan. A very careful study should be made of this phase of the problem and then urge the passage of such laws in each state as will be most favorable to the development of the whole proposition.

ASSOCIATIONS

For real aggressive work we must rely very largely upon numerous associations, national, state, county and local. This association should take the lead and many others can render tremendous assistance in carrying out a national program. Enthusiasts in every community should see to it that the subject is properly represented at the local meetings of horticultural associations and other organizations which discuss rural problems.

In closing this paper may I again urge the importance of a constructive research program, if nut culture is to make any considerable progress in the United States.



APPENDIX

Members and others present: E. M. Ives, Meriden, Conn.; Jacob E. Brown, Elmer, N. J.; Jacob A. Rife, S. J. Rife, J. S. Rittenhouse, Loraine, Pa.; Christian LeFevre, W. Lampeter, Pa.; John Rick, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel L. Smedley, Prof. H. H. Beck, J. E. Fortney, J. F. Jones, Harvey A. Penney, James M. Balthaser, James S. McGlennon, Ralph T. Olcott, John Watson, J. G. Rush, T. P. Littlepage, Mr. and Mrs. C. S. Ridgway, Prof. F. N. Fagan, A. C. Pomeroy, C. M. Leiter, Ralph W. Leiter, Elam G. Hess, W. N. Roper, Mr. and Mrs. W. G. Bixby, Mrs. N. R. Haines, Wilmer Wescoat, Patrick O'Connor, Postmaster Spencer, Dr. W. C. Deming, W. S. Linton, J. S. Ritchie, Dr. C. A. Cannaday, Dean R. L. Watts, Mr. and Mrs. W. C. Rhodes, Ammon P. Fritz, Mr. and Mrs. Blockhauser, D. F. Clark, Rev. and Mrs. Geo. A. Stauffer, Harry Stuart, Oliver S. Shaefer.

Exhibits: Black walnuts, Ohio, Stabler from original tree at Brookville, Md.; Thomas, considered the best of the larger sorts, and perhaps the best cracker among these, tree a very rapid grower and a good and reliable bearer; Persian walnut, Alpine, from Benj. Mylin, Willow St. Pa. grafted tree; Juglans sieboldiana or sieboldi, Japan walnut, rapid grower and beautiful tree; Juglans cordiformis, Japan walnut, tree similar to the sieboldiana but a better nut, grafted trees bearing very early; Indiana pecan from original tree Wabash River bottoms, Oaktown, Ind.; Niblack pecan from original pecan in Indiana; Weiker hickory seedlings, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, from seedlings 60 years old from the parent tree 200 years old at Lampeter, Lancaster Co., Pa., showing marked variation from the type of the parent tree, which is believed to be a cross between the shagbark and the shellbark; Kirtland shagbark from original tree at Yalesville, Ct.; Laney shagbark-bitternut hybrid from original tree in Rochester, N. Y. city park; Fairbanks shagbark-bitternut hybrid from topworked tree, original tree near Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Leaves, burrs and nuts of Morris hybrid chestnut No. 1, American sweet chestnut pollen on chinkapin. High quality, good size, prolific. Tree has not blighted to date after twelve years exposure to blighting chestnuts and chinkapins. Leaves, burrs and nuts of Morris hybrid chestnut No. 2, American sweet chestnut pollen on chinkapin. High quality, bright color, good size, not so prolific as No. 1 and No. 3 as it leaves some of the racemes of burrs unfilled. The tree has not blighted to date after twelve years of exposure to blighting chestnuts and chinkapins. Leaves, burrs and nuts of Morris hybrid chestnut No. 3, American sweet chestnut pollen on chinkapin. Many Japanese and Korean chestnuts were blossoming in the vicinity and this may be an accidental pollination from them instead of from pollen of the American chestnut. Quality not so good as that of No. 1 and No. 2. Nut dull in color instead of bright. Tree prolific, has shown blight but once during twelve years of exposure among blighting chestnuts and chinkapins. Blight took place at a place where the tree was injured by a falling limb from a dying chestnut tree. The blighted spot was cut out and did not reappear. Filberts, Emperor, Du Chilly, Montebello, Noce Lunghe, Italian Red, Des Anglais, Red Aveline, Cornucopia, Imperial Daviana; Nelubium luteum, American lotus, also called water chinkapin, Yonkopin, etc., an aquatic plant; Nelubium speciosum, Egyptian lotus, much cultivated for its large, beautiful flowers.

THE END