Mount Vernon Walnut ts Thriving in Ingham

Mason. Sept. 26.—Summit R. King, a pioneer of Mason, who was present when the Republican party was born "under the oaks" in Jackson county, has evolved a plan for raising historic trees in Ingham county.

In 1906 he visited the tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon and while there gathered some black walnuts from a tree on the grounds. He planted those and his trees are now in bearing.

He has placed a quantity of the nuts in the hands of the county school commissioner, Miss Daisy Call, to be given to the rural schools that the grounds may be beautified with trees planted in memory of George Washington.

Why not have Mount Vernon walnuts thus distributed throughout the Union. Every school boy and girl in the land would be delighted to get them for planting.

The supply would not equal one hundredth part of one per cent of the demand for them. Then select throughout the country other special or historic trees of various kinds or varieties of nuts and still I am sure the supply would not begin to equal the demand. Long ago I began to arrange for nut crops from some of these historic trees, planted by Washington at his beautiful Mount Vernon home, now the Mecca for prince or pauper and all those millions who love the freedom of glorious America.

Those nuts will be planted in the parks and on the grounds of the people of my home city this very year by the children of our schools who are now in their moulding being taught to revere the name of the father of our country.

This very act of patriotism will cause thousands of boys and girls to have fixed in their minds for youth or age the value of planting the useful trees that will in later years produce food of the very best character for the human race. Carry this message into every city, village and school district and the good work will be duplicated thousands of times and then the movement in which we have so earnestly engaged will have brought forth fruit in great abundance so that even the great majority of those living today, and certainly the generations to come must give this organization and its founders great credit for real and lasting benefits that will prevail for centuries to come.

We all desire at this very important period in our existence as an Association, to strengthen our forces and enlarge the scope of our work. To do it at once let me suggest the early choosing and naming of live vice-presidents in every state that may be united with us in membership; also a general committee on legislation. This committee can do much the coming year when legislatures throughout the country will be in their regular session, to cause the adoption of laws similar to the Michigan Statute known as the Penney Act, which provides for the planting of nut and other food bearing trees along the public highways.

It is one of the most progressive enactments in recent years and its good features should be adopted by every State, and the Federal Government as well, by applying its provisions to National highways also.

In conclusion I wish to thank each and every officer and member for uniform courtesies and favors extended to me throughout the year. My only regret being that official duties, extended traveling, and other unforeseen demands upon my time have prevented me from giving the close personal attention to every detail of the Northern Nut Growers Association business that it otherwise would have been my great pleasure to have done.

My gratitude is cordially extended to each and every member.

Mr. B. G. Foster: Mr. President and Fellow Members: I realize that children should be seen and not heard and I am merely a child in this organization. At the same time I believe under modern conditions children are being more and more heard and the older people are being put more and more in the background. So I am going to take the liberty of making a few remarks particularly with reference to the president's address. This is my first attendance at a meeting of the Northern Nut Growers' Association and I have profited very greatly by it. I have become very much interested in nut culture. In a small way I am stumbling along and learning something of the work and the development of this industry. At present it is merely a fad with me but I do not know but what it may become something more as I get into it. I have been particularly impressed this morning with the address of the president. There were one or two suggestions that he makes that I wish to refer to. I think it is an excellent suggestion to get the children interested in nut culture through historical nut trees if nuts can be secured from such trees and delivered to different school authorities.

Another is the question of having a representative from every state. I would like to inquire from the secretary if some such provision has been adopted.

The Acting Secretary: We have always had a list of state vice-presidents which you will find in each one of the reports. Those state vice-presidents have been selected because of their being the most active members in each particular state but they have never been especially active more than to turn in some communication about their work. I have never been able to get any of them to make any special campaign for new members.

Mr. Foster: Then, as I understand it, the president's idea is to urge these vice-presidents to take a more active interest in the affairs of the association.

The President: That is the point I desire to make.

Mr. Morris: When the constitution of the United States was drawn up it was said to be "insanely ideal." We do not have to stretch our imaginations this morning to the point of a question of our sanity when our president's compositions are put before us. His paper seems sanely ideal. There is only one thing that interests a child more than history, (unless it is Sunday school), and that is a dollar bill. Now if we are going to approach the children let us introduce the pragmatic side of giving the child an object lesson showing where the planting of a nut tree will bring a return in dollar bills that will ripen along with the leaves every autumn instead of just leaves alone. We should have in connection with various educational institutions a few object lesson trees. It seems to me that this is a responsibility of the state. A number of responsibilities have been put upon the state in the past and a number of responsibilities have been put upon the educational department in every state. So many of them, in fact, that hardly any legislature will stand without hitching when there is a question of diversion of "pork barrel" funds away from river and harbor appropriations toward education. We can show that very much larger river and harbor requirements will follow if our children raise so much of this great new feed supply that we have more things to transport. The question may be taken almost seriously from that point. In fact if you give further consideration to the matter it seems to me that this statement of mine, made somewhat in the spirit of levity, is like many other statements made in the spirit of levity. It has a basis in real fact. The development of that basis I will leave to your imagination.

Mr. McGlennon: In regard to Dr. Morris' remarks relative to the financial consideration, that appeals to me with peculiar force and I think we can very materially provide for it in an enlarged membership. For some time I have been giving very serious thought to the subject of enlarging the membership of the Northern Nut Growers Association. I think quite a substantial gain was made last year and I believe that a very large gain can be made this year. I think we ought to have a membership in the neighborhood of a thousand anyway. I believe we can increase it this year to at least 500. Probably I am particularly fortunate in having a source of supply of membership that perhaps the rest of the members have not, through the L. W. Hall Company. This company is handling our improved filberts and is getting a large number of orders and the people who have received plants during the past couple of years seem to be very much pleased with them. In many instances they have already borne fruit. The Hall company has received splendid letters in regard to them. In the fall and in the spring the Hall company sends out a large number of catalogues. This fall they will send something like a thousand, in the spring from five to seven thousand and in each of these catalogues the literature of the Northern Nut Growers Association can be included. We experimented a little last year along this line and I believe Mr. Bixby will bear me out in saying that there was quite a tangible response. I got a few members in and about Rochester through friends but I believe that I can almost guarantee at least a hundred members myself this year and probably more, particularly through the medium of the Hall agency. But, as Dr. Morris says, or practically said, there is nothing in this world that talks louder than a dollar so I thought I would come here prepared to back up my position and to guarantee at least 25 members for this year.

There is another matter to which I think we ought to give serious consideration and that is the matter of the American Nut Journal. It is the only nut journal, as I understand, in the country and I believe there is an inestimable future for it if we seize our opportunity or enable Mr. Olcott to seize his. At this time, I believe, he is not getting the support that he ought to have from this Association and the other nut associations of the country. He is a very able man, at one time the editor of the Post Express in Rochester, the classiest paper in Rochester, and we have some classy ones there, he is an educated man of large experience and very versatile and it seems to me he ought to have substantial support. So I came here with a certified check for 25 memberships to the association and 25 subscriptions to the American Nut Journal as a guarantee of good faith. I believe I can add 75 more.

There are some other things that I think we ought to give consideration to and that is the work that is being done by Dr. Deming and Mr. Bixby. I think these men should have special and substantial support, real support, money support, so that they can do things as they ought to be done at the time they ought to be done. I think we are selfish in asking these men to give so much of their time and attention and money to the affairs of this association without giving them better support. If we have more members we will have more money and more members will bring more members. This propaganda will be spread far and wide. The interest in nut culture is growing by leaps and bounds. I think this is the time to strike as a scientific organization. I think the Northern Nut Growers' Association is the most scientific of all of the nut growing associations. That is something of a guess, of course, but if they were put to the test I believe it would come out on top. Anyway put me down for the very best efforts that I can render to the end of building up membership and financial support of this association. It seems to me that with men like Deming, Bixby, Morris, Littlepage, and others whom I could mention, the scientific and practical ends of this association are being pretty well taken care of. We meet here in association and it is very lovely, something of a mutual admiration society; we go away and are likely to forget until it is about time to get busy with another meeting. Now it seems to me we ought to be busy all the year doing something so that when we come to the meeting like this we have something to report in the way of membership and money. That will make possible these plans that Dr. Morris suggested. I was unable to hear the president's address but it seems to me that more attention should be given to the matter of finances of this association and the membership.

I just want to add a remark or two in regard to Mr. Vollertsen who is going to read a paper on the filbert. We have found, and we certainly believe, he and I,—and he knows more than I do because he is on the ground all the time—I look after the sales end of it,—we have found that several of our smaller varieties of nuts are, in our estimation, decidedly superior to some of the larger varieties. While we believe that the consumer is going to give first thought to size he will be making a mistake if he passes by some of our smaller varieties which are splendidly filled, filled to capacity, very rich, and thin-shelled. I do not want the smaller varieties passed by.

Mr. Jones: I think the nurseries would be glad to co-operate in the getting of new members and it has occurred to me that they might like to donate trees to new members or plants or something that would attract them. That might be worked up with the secretary if it would be any great attraction for getting new members.

The President: I think that is a very good suggestion.

The Secretary-Treasurer: Mr. McGlennon spoke of the amount of time that the secretary had to give to the work. I can speak from experience and I can speak frankly because the secretary and the treasurer are different persons, although the office of the secretary treasurer has not yet been officially divided. The treasurer is supposed to have not much to do and the secretary to get the bulk of the work. While the finances of the association at the present time are not such that we can recommend the paying of a salary to the secretary, yet there should be a salary paid to the secretary sufficient so that he could employ someone to relieve him of a good portion of the detail which comes on him. I know by experience what that is. I would like to ask the association to authorize the treasurer to pay the secretary a salary not exceeding $500 a year. That is what it ought to be or whatever portion of that the finances will permit for this purpose. In offering that I do not want the secretary to think that he must begin to spend the money right away, because it is not in the treasury, but I have a lot of faith that we will get more money and will be enabled to pay that. So I want to ask your authority to do it.

Mr. Olcott: I would like to second that motion and also to endorse what Mr. McGlennon said, and Mr. Jones, in regard to new members. I think that is one of the things we need as much as anything right now and that we can get them if we go after them. I know that our secretaries, both Mr. Bixby and Dr. Deming, have done a great deal of work and that it takes a great deal of work to get new members. There are a good many other things on the schedule for the treasurer and secretary to do besides that. We have a system of vice-presidents for each state and one of my recent ideas has been that he might form the center for an increase of membership in his particular state through co-operation with the secretary of this association. If we do not keep after this matter after we adjourn we shall be just about where we are now a year from now. It is activity that counts. I am sure that if we provide for a salary for the secretary we will get busy and provide for that salary, so I make the motion that the treasurer be authorised to pay $500, or any portion of that amount that the association can afford, to the secretary.

Dr. Morris: I second the motion.

The motion was carried unanimously.

The Acting Secretary: You will notice that, in the question box, question number 12 is in relation to roadside planting of nut trees. More people, it seems to me, are interested in the roadside planting of nut trees than in any other one phase of nut planting. I get many questions about what is desirable to plant on the roadsides and many suggestions that the Association particularly interest itself in encouraging roadside nut planting. Therefore it seems to me that it would be advisable that this association should appoint a committee which should consider all the factors concerned in roadside planting of nut trees, and should draw up a bulletin which can be sent out to officials and people who make inquiry and to all people who are interested, giving them exact and specific information on the subject of road planting in each state, considering each state separately and suggesting what nut trees had best be planted in that particular state.

Mr. Jones: I think Dr. Deming's suggestion is a good one but I do not like the idea of waiting another year. I think we ought to do that right now. There is a big opportunity for producing new varieties. For instance, get each state to take up planting of the very best nuts they can get and then plant the seedlings on the roadside and we will get new varieties that will be better than anything we have now. If you plant common nuts you will get common nuts but if you plant fine nuts while you will still get a large number of ordinary nuts you will get some that will be fine and some that will be better than anything you plant, if you plant enough of them. I think that is the greatest opportunity we have in roadside planting.

The Acting Secretary: I think this is the proper course to follow, that the committee appointed should have power to issue a bulletin without waiting for the next convention. I would like to see our president at the head of the committee.

Mr. Jones: I would like to see them get the nuts this year. There is a good crop of nuts this year, black walnuts, hickory and other nuts.

The Acting Secretary: I move that a committee be appointed by the president, the number to be determined by the president, and our president, Mr. Linton, to be the chairman of the committee, to consider the compilation and issue of a bulletin on roadside planting of nut trees.

Mr. Bixby: I second the motion.

The motion was carried unanimously.

Mr. Pomeroy: You will find this argument probably will be used by some that the trees will be destroyed by automobile parties and children hammering the nuts off with sticks and stones. I have a few nut trees planted along the roadside now that are in bearing. They have been in bearing, some of them, six or eight years and they are within forty feet of a school house with a large attendance of children. I have had no trouble at all with the children gathering the nuts or tampering with the trees. Of course they take a few—I would take them if I were in their place,—but none of any consequence. Automobile parties passing along there seldom bother them—although they are worse than the children to tell the truth. You will hear that argument, that a food producing tree along the roadside will be injured by travelers.

Dr. Morris: Mr. Pomeroy's remark relates either to one of two things, to bad nuts or good children. We will not have that feature throughout the country at large. It is an important point, however, but if this is to be committee work it seems to me that perhaps Mr. Pomeroy and others might offer their testimony at the time there is a committee meeting for bulletin purposes and we ought not to go on with this discussion at this time.

The President: The next thing on the program is an address by Dr. William A. Taylor, Chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry, on "The Place of Nut Trees in our Northern Horticulture."

THE PLACE OF NUT TREES IN OUR NORTHERN HORTICULTURE

Wm. A. Taylor, Washington, D. C.

We are somewhat inclined in America to consider none but the big things worth while.

We like to do the big things and the quick ones. To organize billion dollar corporations; grow billion bushel wheat crops; to have the swiftest motor boat or auto; to receive the largest income per man, per year, or per acre. Concentrating our attention on cap sheaves and superlatives rather generally we very easily lose sight of features less conspicuous though highly important.

Such an one is the rational development of nut culture in our Northern States. Since the scouring of our chestnut forests by the Asiatic chestnut blight has practically eliminated that nut from consideration for orchard planting in the infected territory until resistant varieties yielding good crops of nuts of acceptable quality are obtained or developed, we can hardly say with assurance that we have any nut of proved adaptability in sight which is worthy of planting on an extensive scale for its crop alone, on productive agricultural land in the Northern States.

Along the southern fringe of "the North" as in Delaware, Maryland, southern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri exception in favor of the hardy varieties of pecans should probably be noted but in the light of present knowledge orchard planting of the commercially important almond, Persian walnut, and pecan must be left to the Pacific Coast and in the South.

This fact has been so generally recognized that we have been inclined to give up all thought of attempting nut production in the North merely because large scale operation is not attractive. There is much ground for belief that this view is erroneous and that there is need for localized planting.

If the world war taught any economic lesson to civilized men which they should remember and act on, it is that low cost food reserves should be provided against possible exigencies. They are not needed every year but when needed their value can hardly be estimated. Only to a limited extent can such reserves be accumulated out of the production of our ordinary cereals and commonly cultivated crops. Potential reserves in the form of fruitful nut trees can be established at relative light initial investment or of continuing care and labor on almost every farm and by many a roadside in much of our farming territory. Black walnut, butternut, shag bark, shell bark, beech and other hardy, long-lived native trees can be established at low cost in large numbers for beauty, shade, and food production. Nor should the possibilities of Persian walnut, Japanese walnut, and native hazel be disregarded in favored sections.

While none of these are entirely free from plant diseases or insect pests, they are, when once established, capable of maintaining themselves fairly clean and sound with little expenditure for spraying or other attention during the growing season when the peak load activities of the farm are on. Why should not their planting receive more attention and encouragement from our horticultural and other rural societies? For rough land and roadside planting they are decidedly more practical in most sections than any of our fruit trees, substantially all of which require spraying and tillage to maintain productiveness, or in fact to avoid becoming nuisances by harboring pests to contaminate the commercial orchards of the neighborhoods. While much has been said in America in commendation of the roadside planting of fruit trees so common in portions of Europe, and while there are possibilities of useful development along this line, most American efforts in this direction have proved disappointing because of the impracticability of giving the trees the care and attention they require. While often promising at the start they have quickly become infested with San Jose and other scales, borers, blights and rots which can only be prevented or controlled by systematic and thorough remedial measures, rarely possible on rough lands, in fence rows and on roadsides.

If this type of nut culture is sufficiently promising to be worth while, do we not need to attack its problems from a somewhat different angle than has become our custom with the trees which are to be grown under intensive cultural conditions at high maintenance cost, such as more and more characterizes our orcharding?

It has seemed to me for some time that in this field we need to return in our study of varieties and strains of nut trees to the standards and ideals of the earlier and ruder period of American Pomology when rusticity of tree, including storm endurance, freedom from troublesome diseases and insect pests, as well as productiveness and dessert quality were the primary consideration next after satisfactory productiveness and quality of crop.

This and other like societies might well devote much effort to the securing of performance records of promising individual nut trees, whether wild or grown by man, with a view to locating those which, whether bearing nuts of the largest size and finest quality or not, possess the inherent ability to bear regular crops of fair quality under the rough and humble conditions of the average fence row or roadside of the region to which they are adapted. Can a more alluring and fascinating field for search throughout the growing season be suggested or one more likely to interest the growing army of nature lovers, whether dwellers in country or town?

Once located and proved worth while through a sufficient period of cropping such trees, especially of black walnut, could be made available through nursery propagation for rapid dissemination for experimental planting throughout the areas of their probable adaptability.

Do not understand me as in any sense discouraging the continuance of painstaking experimentation with a view to finding or developing varieties suited to orchard planting in those scattered, favored spots where conditions make success reasonably probable. My point is rather that in our northern states by far the largest potential production of nuts is through waste land utilization and dual or triple purpose planting, such as nuts and shade and in some cases ultimate yield of highly valuable timber.

In short, widespread recognition of the importance of nut-tree planting as a side line. This deserves attention during the next few years because of the practical certainty that as our nationwide development of permanent highways proceeds, roadside trees planting on a large scale is sure to follow. When undertaken it should be on a solid foundation of experience especially with regard to the climatic adaptation, soil and drainage requirements, varietal characteristics, such as habit, vigor, pest resistance, and productiveness, all of which are fundamentally important where the use of the land for a century or more is involved. What has been said with regard to highway planting is still more important with regard to the planting of the farmstead where ill-suited trees become a source of grief rather than of satisfaction.

Side-line planting of nut trees in our northern states is practically sure to develop on a large scale during the next twenty-five years.

How can the essentials to its rational development be most promptly and accurately determined and most effectively disseminated among the people?

Dr. Morris: Apropos of side line planting, Mr. Jones some three or four years ago gave me a very handy little orchard saw. He said that when I went around the orchard on Sunday morning before church time if I had this saw with me I would find something to do. Well when I have this saw in my hand before church I find so much to do that I cannot go to church. Now if we take up tree planting as a side line it is going to be the little cap that will fire off the big gun. I think we may safely urge side line planting of nut trees believing that men who take up the side line will be drawn into putting them out on the very best land they have.

The Secretary Treasurer: Dr. Taylor said "if the trees were suited to the climatic conditions." I would like to ask him about that. I get many requests from people from various parts of the country as to what trees would succeed in their sections. As a matter of assistance in the future I would like to ask Dr. Taylor how he would go about finding that out.

Dr. Taylor: Mr. President, my first step I think would be to put that question to my neighbor who had been there longer than I, who had had his eyes open and who had had opportunity to observe. There is great risk in undertaking to project into investment propositions theoretical considerations with respect to particular varieties of trees. Our guide, our only guide, must be actual, observed behavior of the trees that we have under consideration. Of course we can draw some broadly general lines. We do well in a matter of this character to draw those lines rather conservatively and make clear that he who passes beyond the line does so at his own risk. He does it deliberately experimentally rather than upon what you might call an investment basis. The important thing, it seems to me at this stage is to observe and record the facts with respect to the trees now growing. That, of course, is particularly true with regard to the native trees which, without doubt, must take the lead in side line planting throughout the northern states. That is to my mind the important thing. Trees exist in large numbers. They need to be located and studied not merely observed on one bright sunny afternoon when everything tends towards satisfaction and optimism, but through the eyes in a way that will make available not only to the observer but to the rest of us the facts in regard to those trees.

The President: The next number on our program is Tree Planting for Definite Purposes, by Charles Lathrop Pack, President of the American Forestry Association. Mr. Pack has notified us that he is unable to be present, but has forwarded his paper.

GREATEST POWER PRODUCING ENGINE IS THE NUT TREE—MAKE NUT TREES YOUR MIDDLE MAN IN FIGHTING FOOD COST

Charles Lathrop Pack, President, The American Forestry Association

On every hand we hear the call for power and more power. Every scientific genius in the world directs his attention to increasing power units in the struggle for world trade on which we are entering following a World War. Business calls for quicker transportation and the motor world answers with master motors; railroads are being or have been electrified; water power developments are being pushed in many parts of the country. The business world calls for more power and the aeroplanes answer with the delivery of mail and soon we are told it will enter the strictly commercial field. But what of man? What is being done to make him stand up under this terrific strain; this keener competition? What of the food that must keep him going? What of products that must be put before him with the middle man standing between?

A nut bearing tree is the most powerful engine in the world if its fruits be properly used. If the people of the United States could have nut bearing trees for their "middlemen" in the fight to bring down the High Cost of Living it would come down quickly.

Nuts are the most important of all tree crops because they are the richest natural food substance known. A nut is Nature's supreme effort to pack as much nourishment as she can into the smallest possible space for the nourishment of the future young plant. That some people are aware of these food values is evidenced in the nationwide tree balloting now being conducted by the American Forestry Association for the selection of a national tree. In this voting nut bearing trees are in the lead. Many nuts contain as much musclebuilding food as rich cheese, a third more than beef steak, twice as much fat as cheese, five times as much as eggs. Chestnuts contain 70 per cent of starch, nearly as much as the best wheat flour and four times as much as potatoes. Peanuts and hickory nuts are three times as nourishing as beefsteak. When you think of it that way it hardly seems to be the thing to casually munch triple extract of beefsteak from a street nut stand or after a hearty dinner. Say a fifty-pound bushel of black walnuts costs two dollars. It yields 12½ pounds of meats whose fuel, or food value is 37,500 calories. The same number of calories in beefsteak at fifty cents a pound would cost more than fifteen dollars. A bushel of hickory nuts at three dollars yields as many calories as sixteen dollars' worth of round steak.

Out in Kansas the other day a single walnut tree stump, grubbed out on the banks of a creek in Geary County brought the farmer $250. When the call of war came we found we had to hunt for black walnut to make gun stocks and aeroplane propellers. In some towns in Ohio, citizens cut the walnut from their streets so high was the price offered for this wood. So let us make trees, particularly nut bearing trees, the memorials or the proper setting for memorials to the men who offered their lives to their country in the World War. Let us line our highways with trees and make them Roads of Remembrance. In this way the trees will impress their value upon millions of our people. Put these trees where they can spread the message of production and beautification combined. Take their seeds and pass them on to other places where the message will be spread still further.

Michigan is planting apple trees along a Victory Highway. Tourists will pick those apples some day. That is just what Michigan wants them to do. Michigan wants the tourists to carry the fame of Michigan's apples to the southern tip of Florida and to the northern tip of Montana. Why do not your members of this Association of nut growers follow the example of Michigan by planting nut trees along the highways of the state they represent. The American Forestry Association is glad to co-operate with anyone who wants to spread the message of the tree. The people of this country have a responsive ear to campaigns of education. The American Forestry Association's call for memorial tree planting has demonstrated this. Trees are being planted by the American Legion, the Service Star Legion, schools, church congregations, all sorts of organizations and individuals throughout the country. The tree is the one thing with its ever renewing life symbol that meets the requirements of a memorial. The tree is the memorial the individual can erect, care for and protect. Then just consider what the tree gives the planter in return—an affection that only comes from the bosom of the earth, to which the loved one for whom the tree was planted, has returned.

You gentlemen are missing a great opportunity if you do not get squarely behind the American Forestry Association and help it spread the message of the tree, Nature's masterpiece and greatest gift to man, and in doing so urge the value of planting trees that produce food wherever such trees can give better service than those which do not produce food.

The President: The next number on our program is A Nursery of Improved Filberts, by Conrad Vollertsen, of Rochester, N. Y.

A NURSERY OF IMPROVED FILBERTS

Conrad Vollertsen, Rochester, N. Y.

Again I have prepared a paper on the growing of Improved European hazelnuts, but through practical experience perhaps a little more positive in my statements.

It is well known, a well established fact, that our common native American hazelnuts both Corylus rostrata the beaked hazel, and Corylus Americana the American hazel in their present state of appearance are for various reasons not very well adapted nor desirable for cultivation, particularly Corylus rostrata, a very slow growing variety with unusual small and hard shelled nuts, so small and hard that even the rodents of field and forest refuse to gather and eat them. The only value I can see in this variety is that it may prove to be a good pollenizer. Corylus Americana is a better grower with nuts a little longer than the preceding variety, but a short life plant and therefore not even fit to use for stock to graft on and should never be used for that purpose. There is in fact by both varieties lots of room for improvement, which only could be gained through scientific hybridization and which we hope will be realized to a certain extent at least in a comparative few years.

It is true a few better varieties of the American type like the Rush hazel and one or two others have been discovered or produced, but even they do not favorably compare with the better European varieties and the consequences are: If we want to grow hazel-nuts, we are at the present time and until such time has arrived, when through scientific hybridization substantial improvements over the present state and condition of our native hazel-nuts has been gained, actually compelled to rely on some of the European varieties, compelled to grow and cultivate a large assortment, from which to select the proper varieties for the different sections of our country.

I therefore have chosen as a title to my paper The Growing of Improved European Hazel-nuts in Nursery and Orchards in the State of New York and other Eastern and Northeastern States. I have chosen this title, because it indicates that a nursery of European hazel-plants is in existence and that orchards are planted, which is really equivalent with growing of European hazel-nuts for commercial purposes, otherwise there would be no need of such nurseries and no need of hazel-orchards.

I have alluded to this very subject in an earlier paper, but was at that time not as convinced of the final success as I am today.

We have since not only experienced a very severe and constant winter but a winter in a great many ways rather peculiar and unusual with early and heavy snowfall, which prevented in some sections of the eastern states the freezing of the ground in spite of the bitter cold. We have since seen another season of buds and blossoms and balmy breezes passing away never to return and a season of harvesting our fruit is rapidly approaching its end, but, ladies and gentlemen, during this now vanishing and for some sections of our country rather peculiar season, great opportunities were offered the close observer to study and investigate the different problems concerning the growing of European hazel-nuts in the northeastern states of our country.

Let us hope that not all of these opportunities and chances offered us have passed unobserved, but that some of those perplexed questions of filbert or hazel-nut growing in the east have been solved. To me this past season, though somewhat unusual, was very interesting and above all very instructive to growers of hazel-nuts.

It is my opinion that the peculiarity of this season has wonderfully aided to solve many of those unanswered questions about the growing of European hazel-nuts for commercial purposes in the Eastern States. Through practical experience and close observation throughout the whole season it certainly has convinced me beyond the slightest doubt in my mind that some varieties of European improved hazel-nuts properly selected for the different states or parts of the Eastern States can be profitably grown for commercial purposes. It will of course require time and work to find out the right and proper varieties for the different sections of our country. For Western New York I could select eight or ten varieties from my nursery that would prove A No. 1 for that part of the state of New York, probably a number of the same varieties would do equally as well in parts of adjacent states, but of that we are not sure until actual planting has been done and thoroughly tried out. The question now is how and where can we obtain the necessary varieties of hazel-plants, as the importation of most kinds of nursery stock, including all nutbearing trees from foreign countries is at the present time very much restricted, practically prohibited. To my judgment there is but one way out of this, if we want to grow hazel-nuts of foreign origin.

We are under the existing circumstances, as stated before, simply compelled to grow our own plants. And this is being done. And to prove that it can be successfully done I will try to describe and demonstrate the method I am using or employing in my nursery for propagating the hazel- or filbert-plants. I still adhere to layering as the best method of propagating the hazel, large numbers can be produced in a comparative short time, if sufficient stock-plants are at hand; and plants on their own roots have many advantages over grafted or budded stock, as there is no wild growth to combat with, so deceiving and aggravating to the people who plant hazel-nuts and liable to choke or kill the growth or bud, that eventually nothing but the wild stock will remain.

The general assertion or claim, that grafted or budded hazel-plants are more productive, more prolific, than plants on their own roots does not hold good to all varieties, as I have both grafted plants, as well as plants on their own roots of bearing age and have so far not been able to see any difference in bearing, now in the size of the fruit or nuts, but would like to have it strictly understood that this opinion of mine, gained through experience and observation in my nursery only should not be taken as final, as I only have a few grafted varieties to watch and to compare. In fact I have every reason to believe that grafted hazel-plants of some varieties, will be more prolific and bear more regular, but have had so far no proof of it, but will do more grafting of other varieties to establish the fact more positive and report the result later. For the buying public at the present time, plants raised from layers on their own roots should be preferable and layering as a method of propagating the hazel-plants resorted to until the general public gets more and better acquainted and familiar with the growing of hazel-plants.

The layering of hazel-plants in my nursery is done from imported stock or parent-plants planted on ordinary farm land thoroughly worked and well manured 12 feet apart each way. Two year old plants are selected for such planting, they are allowed to grow about two seasons before we layer them, which would be about in the autumn of the second year, at that time there should be besides the ordinary growth of the original plant, some fine young shoots growing from the root, which could be, if go desired, layered together with other branches of the plant, but is not always advisable, neither is it necessary, as the plants selected for parent stock should be well branched and well able to furnish wood enough for the first layering without those one year old shoots.

I will now try to show to you, as an illustration and at the same time try to explain the reason why they should not be layered, simply because they are there. It is all well and good to layer them, if the scarcity of wood of a choice variety demands every branch obtainable and they will grow all right, but will never produce as nice a root as layers from a two year growth. These are the young so-called one-year-old shoots I have referred to, really just this season's growth, perfectly straight without any laterals. Now in layering them a little opening long enough for the branch and about 3 to 4 inches deep, the same as for layering other branches should be made in the ground and the young shoot or branch carefully bent and placed in the opening and well anchored or fastened before the ground is filled in again, otherwise our changeable winters may heave and loosen them, we will then at the best of it eventually grow but one plant from each of such shoots and generally poorly rooted at that, that is a root rather long and crooked not very easy to plant and still harder to dig, very much like this specimen a layered one year old shoot, just taken from a parent plant.

We cannot improve much on this awkward root as it is impossible to shorten the bend in layering them, but we can improve on them, if we allow the one year shoot or growth another season to grow, we will then at the end of the second season have an altogether different branch before us, a branch in appearance about like the one I have here. You will notice the terminal bud of the last year's growth has made a growth of about 12 to 15 inches during this second season, besides that, you will see from 4 to 7 fine laterals all of them including the growth from the terminal bud fit for layering and all of them will bend easily and can be placed almost perfectly straight in the ground, which will invariably insure finer and better rooted plants and more of them, than a one year growth can produce, as is shown in this specimen from a-two-year-old branch I have brought with me, this demonstration plainly shows that there is nothing lost in waiting two years with the layering of young branches, as our reward will be more and better plants possibly a little smaller, but better growing plants than the longer layers from a one-year growth, besides that, a branch with 4 to 7 laterals can be layered about as quick, as a one-year growth, as the same opening in the ground made for one layer is fully sufficient for 6 or 7 on a two-year old branch. All layered branches or little shoots should be cut back to about 3-4 eyes above the ground and remain in the ground about one year, the earth around the parent plants and between the layers must be well worked throughout the whole season and if necessary mulched with half rotten manure. After the layers are well rooted, they should be taken up, cut apart and properly trimmed and planted in the nursery row, where they remain until large enough for market or orchard planting. There is but very little pruning of the young hazel-plants necessary until they are planted in the orchard. I will therefore not dwell on the subject of pruning just now, but will leave the propagating and growing of the hazel or filbert-plants in the nursery and try to make a few remarks about the hazel or filbert orchard. I should perhaps have mentioned the growing of seedlings for stock to graft or bud upon before I begin my talk on the hazel-orchard, but as there is but very little to be said about it, I may as well refer to it right now.

It is very difficult at the present time to import the ordinary wild hazel (Corylus avellana) from Europe for grafting purposes. We therefore are obliged to raise our own stock. This can well be done by sowing the seed or nuts or by layering of European varieties, we are in possession of. I have among my imported varieties several of which the fruit or nuts are too small and not at all satisfactory for commercial purposes, those varieties I am layering with that point in view to use them for stock to graft upon only. Such stock can also easily be grown from seed or nuts. It has for me so far not been necessary to grow seedlings, as I had stock enough from layers to graft upon, but have found any number of seedlings on my ground from nuts dropped from the plants and not gathered or destroyed by mice or squirrels so I know the seed or nuts will readily grow. Nuts can be sown in the fall quite successfully providing they are safe from mice, otherwise they should be stratified and kept from freezing during the winter. I will leave this subject now and call attention to the hazel or filbert orchard. If the planting of such an orchard is planned, the soil and location should be well considered. Ordinary farm land well worked and fairly well manured and not too wet will answer the purpose, providing it is an open piece of land well exposed to sun and air, as the hazel-nut requires both and a good deal of it in order to perfectly mature its' fruit.

In planting the orchard, three or four varieties should be used on account of better pollenization and plants about three to four years old planted. Varieties that naturally grow more conical or pyramidal shaped could be planted about 12 feet apart each way, but the more spreading varieties like the Lamberts and others I would advise to plant 15 feet apart each way, as part of the land between the rows can well be utilized for low growing crops for several years to come and thereby prevent the waste of land. It is not necessary to plant an equal number of each kind, if three or four varieties are chosen for the orchard, we may select say two very prolific kinds and add a few plants of other varieties to mix in for pollenization, which will fully answer the purpose. Before going any further with my talk on hazel or filbert orchards, I should emphatically recommend the thoroughly working and preparing of the ground, as it is a very essential part of the operation and a necessity to the final success. It is a mistaken idea that a hazel orchard will take care of itself, the ground should be well cultivated and kept free of grass and weeds. Barnyard manure or other fertilizers should be resorted to whenever the ground shows a necessity thereof, neither trees or fruit can be grown successfully on poor and exhausted soil. All filberts or hazel plants are naturally inclined to produce a number of suckers or young shoots grown from the root, they should be removed as soon as they appear, it will stop when the plants grow older. Standard trees with a short stem say 10 to 15 inches should be planted in the orchard, if such plants could be had. It should be our aim to try to grow and prune them with that point in view to raise such plants, as they are then easily taken care of. This actually brings us to the operation of pruning our hazel plants, which is in every way quite an important part of the growing of hazel nuts. At the time of planting all plants should be cut back, the same as is done to any shrub or tree when newly planted, but after that the hazel being more a shrub than a tree should be pruned every year with the center well kept open all the time, all weak and unnecessary wood or branches in the middle of the plant should not be cut back but entirely removed, also the young growth of most of the branches should be removed to just below the terminal bud of the previous years growth, as I will show you on a branch I have brought with me.

If we will treat the plants in our hazel orchards as herein described we should not experience any difficulty in raising a fairly good crop of nuts, if the proper varieties are selected. Insects have so far not troubled in the least, a few tent caterpillars appeared in its season, but were soon destroyed by birds. We should not allow our hazel plants to grow too tall, 12 to 15 feet should be the maximum height, after that the tall growing branches should be greatly reduced, or gradually removed, as there is generally young growth enough to take their places.

During the severe winter of 1919 and '20 most all catkins or staminate blossoms above the snowline in our nursery were frozen, also part of the wood of a few varieties were more or less frozen, of which due notice has been taken. They will be closely observed during the coming winter. Only a few of the staminate blossoms that were well covered under snow developed perfectly and the result was a very small crop of nuts on most of the varieties, but all the varieties had some, even those more or less frozen plants. It plainly shows that but a very few catkins are necessary for pollenization, even over a wide area. There will be failures caused by climatic or atmospheric disturbances in our hazel orchards as well as in all other orchards which we cannot control nor prevent, but that should not discourage us as long as the prospects of fair crops are otherwise all right, the selecting of varieties, the proper pruning of our plants, the control of insects and the location of our hazel orchard is all in our power and should, if properly exercised, almost guarantee a fair crop and insure a fair profit from each acre so planted, providing the proper varieties are selected. Before coming to a close with my paper it seems to me justice is not quite done to the hazel proposition if I would not mention the beauty and pleasure thereof, the beautiful appearance of an hazel orchard and the pleasure and enjoyment it affords us, not from a financial point of view only in gathering the nuts, etc., but from other sources as well. No other orchard will in a comparatively short time appear more like a natural grove than the hazel on account of its characteristic compact growth and dense foliage, so attractive and inviting to our song and other insectivorous birds for hatching and rearing their young, the constant warbling of the different birds from early spring until late in summer, the building of their nests, the feeding of the young, all affords endless pleasure and enjoyment to the close observer. Now October is here, quietness reigns in field and forest, also in the hazel orchards birds are silent, a number of them departed for warmer climates, others ready to leave us, butterflies and other insects have disappeared, nuts have been gathered, and the leaves are falling, death, decaying and destruction seems to be dominating all around us, but our hazel orchard, though remarkably changed, still retains a certain part of its former beauty as the little catkins the staminate blossoms now become more conspicuous, an ornament to any catkin bearing tree throughout the winter, and a pleasure to look upon. There is no reason for discouragement, nature is not dead, only at rest, where we see death and destruction, nature in reality celebrates a new beginning.

The close examination of our hazel orchard at this time will fully convince us that vegetation is still alive and active. Examine the leafless limbs, notice the beautiful staminate blossoms, notice back of the falling leaves the life, the thrifty little bud, a sure and positive promise of a coming spring with the early pistillate hazel blossoms, a great consolation and a great source of pleasure and enjoyment to all. Why not combine profit, beauty and pleasure? Why not plant a hazel or filbert orchard?

Mr. Jones: I would like to ask Mr. Vollertsen if he has tried layering the two years growth and rooting the one year branches thereon instead of layering the one year growth. The one year shoots would no doubt make larger plants at one year but you get a larger number of plants by layering the two years growth and rooting the branches.

Mr. Vollertsen: I have found that these smaller plants will be better plants.

Mr. Jones: What About rooting these and then transplanting. Don't you suppose you gain by rooting those and transplanting in a year.

Mr. Vollertsen: If these were all apart each and every one would make a good plant. I know from experience that they will grow faster a great deal faster than these long roots. There is a plant that has been planted one year from a layer. It is a one year growth. This is a two-year.

The Secretary: I would like to ask Mr. Vollertsen if the soil makes a difference in the way in which they grow. That is if a sandy soil or a clay soil is better adapted.

Mr. Vollertsen: Well I must say if we had sandy loam the plant would grow better and it is more easily worked. Too heavy a soil is not so good.

Prof. Close: I would like to ask Mr. Vollertsen what method of grafting he prefers and just when he would like to do it; if he has any choice of time and also the method of budding and the method of treating the bud.

Mr. Vollertsen: We really should have the common European variety to graft on. Though these are a little small we do graft on them and they do grow well.

Prof. Close: Do you whip graft or cleft graft?

Mr. Vollertsen: Either way they grow easily.

Dr. Morris: I would like to make one remark. I have grafted hazels using the paraffine method from April until September, every month between April and September and have had them grow. The ones I grafted in September were winter killed but up to the sixth of September we have had them pull through the winter.

The President: I do not desire to be placed in the bragging class but as a Michigander several things have been brought to my notice very recently that cause me to take pride in Michigan. As I landed in the fine central station in Washington it occurred to me that a senator from Michigan, James McMillan, had caused the old railroad stations in the District of Columbia to be cleaned out and the fine new depot established in place of them. For his good work one of Washington's parks bears his name. The plans for the new Union Station were prepared by Mr. Spencer, an engineer from Michigan. Passing the Senate Office building I realized that another Michigan Senator, Senator Charles E. Townsend, was at the head of the national road movement in the United States, being chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, fully in accord with the tree planting plan that we have mapped out to be carried on on the public highways throughout the United States. Picking up the program showing what our work might be at this convention, I find five Michiganders noted thereon, a fair proportion of the program. Picking up the morning paper, if you please, you will find that Michigan has been advanced in population beyond the other states. You will find that our city of Detroit has passed a number of other great cities, going from tenth place to fourth, becoming one of the four cities of the United States with a million inhabitants. So you see we have a prosperous state. And we have good men in Michigan that have helped to make it so. Going into a railroad station in a Western city within the past two or three weeks this occurred. The morning paper had stated that the candidate of a great political party to the presidency of the United States was on a train that had been ditched, that the engineer had been severely injured and a number of others on the train; that the distinguished candidate himself had been badly jarred and might possibly have been injured. An hour or two after this first report came from this accident the news boys were calling on the streets: "Extra, extra." Naturally we thought it would be a continuation of news relative to this railroad accident and immediately I purchased a paper. What do you suppose its heading was? In great type three inches high: "Henry Ford has reduced the price of automobiles." Henry Ford perhaps is the best known Michigan citizen today and when we get the river and harbor appropriation that my good friend Dr. Morris referred to not long ago you will see the Washington steamers going up the St. Lawrence River and loading at the seaport of Detroit, carrying out the products of Michigan, we will hope the cargoes of nuts to which he referred. But next to Henry Ford I am sure that the best-known citizen of Michigan today is the next speaker upon the program. He needs no introduction to you. He is one of the pioneers of this movement and in my opinion has done more than any other man in this day and age to promote health, to promote good morals and to benefit the race in many ways along the lines that he has chosen. I take great pleasure in presenting Dr. Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan. (Applause).

Dr. Kellogg: Mr. President, Ladies and gentlemen, I fear I cannot qualify in all of the good things which your chairman has said about me. I am glad to be from Michigan. I assure you I am greatly interested in the work of this association. I admire immensely the perseverance of the members of this association. I am not to any extent a nut grower although I have nuts planted in my garden and hope that my heirs will reap the fruit of my trees. I went into the business rather too late. I have been so busy all my life that I did not have time to do some things. But I am very greatly interested in increasing the consumption of nuts. I have been popularizing the idea of nut consumption and making it a staple article of food for almost fifty years, and I have been continually faced with this objection that if we get all the people eating nuts there would not be enough nuts for them to eat. That is really the situation. There is not much use to increase the demand for a thing unless we can supply the demand. So I am very much interested in the production of nuts.

NUTS NEEDED AS SUPPLEMENTARY FOODS

Dr. J. H. Kellogg, Battle Creek, Michigan

The nut is the oldest and best of Nature's products intended as food for man. The paleontologists tell us that early man was a nut eater as are the gorilla, the orang-ou-tang, and the chimpanzee, his modern prototypes.

Elliot, an eminent English anthropologist, tells us in his interesting volume, "Prehistoric Man," that "there was not, so far as we are aware, any carnivorous creature in the Eocene period."

Elliot also tells us that walnuts, almonds and palm nuts were produced in great quantities in the forests of the ancient world contemporaneously with the lemur-monkey man, who had then made his appearance in what is now northeastern North America, the first land to rise out of the ancient ocean. From the facts set forth by Elliot showing that all the higher mammals were originally vegetable feeders, as well as from his biological affinities with the anthropoids with which man forms the family of primates, it is evident that man is so constituted that he may if he chooses, select his entire bill of fare from the vegetable kingdom. That this may be done successfully, that is, that a man may live on a diet, no part of which is drawn from the animal kingdom, has been abundantly proven. The experience of many millions of human beings in India and other Oriental countries who abstain from the use of flesh on religious grounds, and to whom cow's milk is almost a novelty, is a practical demonstration of the fact that the vegetable kingdom is able to supply to human beings everything required for complete nutrition.

It is true that some years ago Slonaker, of Leland Stanford University, in an animal feeding experiment in which one group of rats was fed a mixed diet and the other exclusively on food stuffs of vegetable origin, found that his vegetable feeding rats, although for a few weeks showing themselves superior to the mixed feeders later developed unmistakable evidence of malnutrition and physical inferiority.

Some years later, however, McCollum of Johns Hopkins, then of Wisconsin University, demonstrated conclusively that by making a proper selection of vegetable foodstuffs, rats may live and thrive indefinitely on a diet wholly derived from the vegetable kingdom. In connection with this and other similar experiments, McCollum made the interesting discovery that when an animal's bill of fare is to be wholly drawn from the products of plant life it is necessary, in order that the animal shall be fully nourished, that all parts of the plant should be eaten. His experiments demonstrated that if animals are fed upon seeds, alone they undergo physical depreciation, do not obtain full growth, are unable to reproduce or nourish their kind, and ultimately perish. In like manner, roots are found to be incapable of bringing an animal to full development and sustaining its life indefinitely. It was found that to be well nourished the animal must eat in suitable proportions, variable within considerable limits, seeds or fruits and leaves. The great importance of the green leaf as a complement of other foods has been clearly shown.

Experiments by McCollum, as well as those of Osborne, Mendel, and numerous other investigators in the same line of research, have made clear several new and highly important facts in the physiology of feeding.

They find that foods contain certain subtle elements known as vitamines which are absolutely essential to the full development and prolonged life of an animal. These elements are not found equally distributed in the parts of plants and animals. In seeds they are found chiefly in the outer layers or envelope which is commonly rejected as bran. A certain vitamine especially concerned with growth and development, the fat soluble B, is found in the green leaf along with lime and iron, all of which are deficient in seeds. Roots especially supply an abundance of alkaline salts which are highly necessary to balance up an excess of mineral acids found in seeds.

Ignorance respecting these highly important facts has been responsible for a great number of failures in attempts to adopt a non-flesh dietary. A diet consisting of cereals and fruits, as for example a bread and fruit diet, while apparently satisfactory for a brief period, must inevitably result in failure because of lack of lime, iron and special vitamines found in the green leaf. The same deficiency exists in flesh foods. The soft parts of an animal, fat and lean meat, are almost wholly lacking in lime and vitamines. They contain a great excess of mineral acids. Even a carnivorous animal fed on such a diet soon shows evidence of failure. The lime in the animal body is found almost wholly in the bones, and the vitamines are concentrated in the liver and other glands, so that in the case of flesh foods, as well as vegetable foods, for complete nutrition it is necessary that the whole animal or its essential parts should be eaten. Wild carnivorous animals do this as do also wild men who live largely upon flesh foods. The cave men crushed and ate the bones of the animals upon which they fed, and the Indian tribes of Texas and the Northwest have long practiced the grinding up of the bones of fishes to eat with their food.

Dr. Treves, one of London's most eminent surgeons was called upon by the head keeper of the animals of the London Zoological garden for advice respecting the condition of the lions. It was noted that the cubs bred in captivity were club-footed and variously deformed, and in many cases were either born dead or survived but a few weeks. His investigation showed that the fault was wholly in the diet. The lions received only the soft parts, lean and fat, of animals. When given bones and bone meal the difficulty speedily disappeared. Stefansson reports that, when living upon an Eskimo diet it is necessary to take the whole bill of fare, including the raw frozen liver of the seal, otherwise serious illness intervenes.

Hindhede, by arranging a dietary based upon these principles, has demonstrated that a man may be perfectly sustained on a diet which contains no animal product of any sort. In a letter received by the writer from this able Danish physiologist, the statement is made that a strong laboring man was maintained for 23 months in perfect health and vigor on a diet into which no animal products entered.

Another important fact developed by Rubner, Mendel, McCollum and other investigators which is of fundamental importance in animal nutrition, is that proteins differ in their value as tissue builders. Proteins differ from the starches and fats in the great complexity of their composition. Instead of being simple compounds or mixtures of a few simple compounds, proteins, as found in nature, consist of several sorts of highly complex molecules which vary greatly in their composition.

The protein molecule is made up of a number of organic units known as amino acids. There are 30 or 40 different kinds of amino acids of which less than 20 enter into the formation of the proteins of the human body. These 18 or 20 different amino acids are absolutely essential for the formation of body proteins, and are produced by plants, hence if they are not found in the food the body cannot produce them and the material necessary for tissue building or repair will be lacking.

Proteins which contain all the amino acids essential for tissue building are known as complete proteins. Other proteins, lacking in certain essential constituents, are designated as incomplete: Flesh foods necessarily furnish complete proteins. The proteins of milk and eggs are also complete proteins. The proteins met in the vegetable world are exceedingly varied in character. Each species of plant produces its own kind of proteins. Vegetable proteins differ greatly among themselves. Complete proteins are comparatively rare. The proteins of cereals, for example, have been shown to be deficient in some of the essential amino acids. The deficiency is still greater in the proteins of beans. In fact, the proteins of vegetable foods in general may be said to be deficient.

The necessity for providing the body with complete proteins was doubtless the original cause which led men under circumstances of privation and emergency to resort to the use of animal flesh for food. The cows of Nantucket, the ponies of Alaska, and I have recently been informed by Mr. Goddard, curator of anthropology in the American Museum of Natural History, the rabbits of northern Canada, in times of great scarcity of food, also resort to the eating of flesh. The necessity for complete protein to maintain physical fitness is so great that animals by nature the farthest removed from the carnivorous class resort to flesh eating when this is the only source of the needed element.

But what bearing has all this upon the dietetic use of nuts? The relation is very direct and very important. The situation developed as a result of the World War made very clear to everybody how close the world has arrived to the point where the careful economizing of our food resources will be absolutely necessary. The rapid increase of the world's population which has occurred, especially within the last two centuries, is a hew world experience. Two hundred years ago the average length of human life was less than 20 years, as it still is in Mexico and some other parts of the world where the life-saving influence of modern sanitation and health conservation have not had an opportunity to exercise their influence. In former times great epidemics devastated whole continents so frequently that the world's population barely held its own from century to century. In many instances whole tribes were wiped out. Such catastrophes are now almost unknown, although we still have with us the plagues of influenza, tuberculosis, syphilis, and pneumonia. Even these, however, are being conquered, so that their destructive influence is being stayed.

At the present rate at which the population of the world is increasing, the time is certainly not far distant when it will be necessary to utilize in the most economical manner possible every acre of soil capable of producing food. During the war the attention of agriculturists was very forcibly called to the enormous waste involved in our so-called animal industry. The first measure of food economy adopted in Germany at the beginning of the war was the slaughter of a large part of livestock. The same measure was adopted in Scandinavian countries and in all parts of central Europe. This was absolutely necessary, as Lusk and numerous other authorities have shown, for the reason that to produce one pound of water-free food in the form of beef or mutton requires the consumption more than 30 pounds of digestible food material. The cow is a much more economical means of food transformation, requiring the consumption of only a little more than 5 pounds of food for each pound produced, so that the waste of food in the production of milk is less than one-fifth as much as in the production of meat. This has led the food economists to recommend the reduced use of meat and the increased use of milk as a source of the complete protein required for sound nutrition. McCollum and other authorities, including representatives of the United States Department of Agriculture, have within the last four years persistently urged upon the public the importance of using more milk and less meat, and not simply as a matter of economy but as a matter of health as well, for it has been shown that the protein of milk is even superior to that of meat. It was found, indeed, that by the use of a few ounces of milk daily, a pint and a half, in connection with a dietary otherwise consisting wholly of foods derived from the vegetable kingdom, the body will be amply supplied with complete proteins, the milk not only furnishing protein of a superior character but serving also to supplement the proteins of the cereals, roots and other vegetable foods, supplying the amino-acids which they lack so as to render them also available for tissue growth and reconstruction.

This discovery respecting the important place which milk is capable of filling in the solution of the great and pressing problem of human nutrition is a highly important one, and its value has led to very active efforts on the part of the U. S. Department of Agriculture to enlarge the dairy interests and increase the milk production of the country as one of the best means of food economy which could be adopted. But even this is not a complete solution of the difficulty, for the keeping of milch cattle involves still a very large waste of food material, five pounds being consumed by the cow for each pound produced. The evident reason for this is the fact that the cow requires the large part of the foods she eats for her own use in maintaining heat production, supplying energy for exercise, supporting the work of the heart, lungs, digestive organs, etc. The food value of the milk produced represents simply what is left over after the cow has made use of what she needs for herself.

There can be no doubt that as meat production diminishes, as it is certain to do, milk production will likewise decrease. There is even at the present time a notable shortage of dairy products, and the average per capita production will undoubtedly continue to decrease for the same causes which inevitably lead to a lessened meat production. Some other source for the complete proteins needed to supplement the incomplete proteins of cereals and roots must be provided. Fortunately, Nature has supplied us with this all-essential foodstuff in that choicest of all our products, the nut. This is a vitally important fact which sometime will save the race from protein starvation.

A study of the relative protein content of nuts, milk, and meat shows that, pound for pound, the almond, beech nut and walnut contain on an average as much protein as does meat and five times as much as is found in milk, and protein which from rat feeding experiments appears to be of equal value. The chestnut, the chinquapin, the filbert, the hickory, pecan and pine nut contain on an average as much protein as is found in fish, while the butternut, the peanut and the pignolia contain twice as much or 50 per cent more than is found in the best of meat.

The following table shows the number of pints of milk equaled by one pound each of the several nuts mentioned, together with the calory value of the nuts per pound and of the amount of milk containing an equivalent amount of protein and the amount of each kind of nuts needed to supply supplementary proteins for one day:

Pints of Milk
containing as
much protein
as one pound		Calories
Milk		Calories
Nuts		Amt. needed
for one day
Acorn2.478026208.3
Almond6.1208030303.2
Beech nut6.6214530753.0
Butternut8.5276231652.4
Chestnut3.2104018766.4
Chinquapin3.8107218006.4
Filbert or Hazelnut5.0162532904.0
Hickory nut4.6149533454.8
Pecan3.6117034555.6
Peanut9.2209026002.2
Pinon4.4143032054.8
English walnut5.4155533003.7
Black walnut8.5276231052.4

From animal feeding experiments it has been determined that about 20 oz. of milk will furnish sufficient complete protein to supplement a vegetable diet otherwise deficient in complete proteins. This amount of milk will supply one-third to one-half the total daily protein requirement for the average person. Nuts are so rich in these precious proteins, practically identical with those of milk, that the protein found in 20 ounces of milk may be furnished by 2 ounces of peanuts, 2½ ounces of butternuts, 3 ounces of almonds or beechnuts, 4 ounces of English walnuts, or filberts, 5 ounces of pinenuts (pinons) or hickory nuts, 5½ ounces of pecans, 6½ ounces of chestnuts or chinquapins, or half a pound of acorns.

The nut is one of the most important and interesting of all foodstuffs for the reason that it presents in concentrated form the most valuable and easily digestible of proteins. It is for this reason that the farmers of Northern Italy are able to thrive on a diet of which the chestnut is the staple. For the same reason 300,000 Pacific Coast Indians prospered for centuries on a diet consisting chiefly of acorns and pinenuts. In recent times, one of these Indians was known to be living at the age of nearly 140 years, and the farmers of the West and South before they had destroyed with axe and fire the splendid oak forests of pioneer days, depended chiefly on mast to fatten their hogs. The acorn was their chief source of protein, which is as necessary for a hog as for a college professor.

From the standpoint of cost, nuts, even at the present extraordinary prices, compare favorably with milk as a source of protein, because of the small quantity required to furnish the needed supplement of complete proteins. For example, shelled almonds, at a cost of $1.00 a pound (retail) supply for 19.2 cents the same amount of supplementary protein furnished by milk at a cost of 24 cents. Black walnuts supply the same amount for 15 cents, pine nuts (pinons) for 20 cents, hickory nuts 15 cents, and peanuts 4 cents.

The late Dr. Austin Flint more than fifty years ago prepared from almonds a milk for use by certain classes of patients. The writer, about thirty years ago, prepared from the peanut and other nuts a preparation known as malted nuts which much resembles malted milk in appearance and flavor, and which has been successfully used in place of milk by persons sensitized to cow's milk in hundreds of cases.

The preparation of milk substitutes from vegetable sources is not a new idea. When in Russia a few years ago, I found on sale in delicatessen shops a paste prepared from honey and almonds which with the addition of water made a very palatable emulsion much resembling milk in appearance as well as in flavor. I have been informed that the natives of the Philippines prepare from the litchi nut a vegetable milk for feeding infants deprived of their natural nourishment. These natural products have the advantage over the infant foods of commerce most of which are better fitted to destroy than to preserve life. They are complete foods, supplying the essential vitamines as well as other necessary elements.

The nut is not only the most concentrated form of nourishment known, but, contrary to the general view, is one of the most easily digestible. The supposed indigestibility of the nut is due to two things, eating when already satiated with food; that is, taking the nut as a surplus food, and second, neglecting to masticate the nuts thoroughly. Watch a monkey eating nuts and see how thoroughly he masticates each particle. Any particle not well crushed and emulsified is passed through the intestinal canal undigested and of course unabsorbed. But when crushed and converted into a smooth cream, the nut is one of the most easily digestible of all foods. Most nuts consist almost exclusively of two food principles, proteins and fats. The protein is one of the finest sort and more easily digestible in the raw state than is cooked protein of any kind. The fat is finely emulsified, and thus prepared for prompt digestion and absorption.

Experiments on human subjects conducted at the Battle Creek Sanitarius by an expert from the laboratory of Yale University, showed that the proteins of nuts are as easily digested and as fully utilized as the proteins of other foodstuffs.

The peanut produces an average crop of at least 40 bushels, or 900 pounds of shelled nuts to the acre, equivalent to 8,280 pounds of cow's milk, to produce which would require 4.6 acres. A grove of black walnuts, 40 trees to the acre, producing one hundred pounds of nuts to the tree, or one thousand to the acre, would afford as much protein as 8,500 pounds of milk, to produce which would require 5.3 acres. It is to be noted, also, that one pound of peanuts has a nutritive value nearly one-third greater than that of the 9.2 pints of milk containing an equivalent amount of protein, while the calory content of the one pound of nuts is more than ten per cent greater than that of the milk furnishing the same amount of protein. In the case of many nuts the disproportion is greater. For example, one pound of filberts has a food value double that of an amount of milk containing the same amount of protein.

The nut is evidently superior to milk as a source of protein. Like milk, nuts are rich in lime, doubtless due to the high protein content with which the lime is associated in vegetable products. Nuts, like milk, are deficient in iron, although in this respect they are considerably superior to milk. Hence when nuts are freely used as a source of protein care should be taken to supplement them by a liberal quantity of greens, which are rich in iron and lime as well as in the fat soluble vitamine which is also found in abundance in milk but in which nuts are rather deficient.

It thus appears that nuts, because of the superior quality of their protein, may not only take the place of meat in the dietary, but when properly combined with other vegetable foods, may to a large extent, at least, take the place of milk. In this respect they constitute a unique class of foodstuffs.

The soy bean, which like the peanut is a legume rather than a true nut, resembles the peanut in composition and like it affords a protein of a quality so closely resembling that of milk that a very excellent milk has been prepared from it. Its protein is also complete in character and may replace the protein of meat. The soy bean has, in fact, for many thousands of years been the chief source of complete proteins for the Chinese and the Japanese.

Aside from the soy bean and the peanut, nuts have no rivals in the vegetable kingdom. They are real plant aristocrats, the value of which will be more and more appreciated as scientific research and practical dietetic experience make clear their numerous points of superiority.

The meat industry and the milk supply are so closely related that both are influenced by the same causes. Both meat and milk are certain to become scarcer and more costly. And while it is most desirable that milk should continue to constitute a part of the human bill of fare and that its use should be encouraged and if possible increased, it is certain vegetable substitutes for both meat and milk will be increasingly in demand as pasture lands shrink in area and the world's population and consequent demand for food cereals increase.

It is certainly greatly to be desired that such efforts should be put forward to convince members of congress and of state legislatures of the importance of nut culture as will induce them to institute efficient measures for encouraging the wide spread culture of nut trees and thus make provision in time for the pressing need of the superfine material afforded by them which coming years will certainly develop, for it cannot be doubted that as the earth's population increases and as the science of nutrition is perfected, we shall return more and more to the dietary of primitive man, in which nuts were the chief staple, with fruits, succulent roots and tender shoots as supplementary foods for bulk, vitamines and food salts.

The Secretary-Treasurer: I have been asked to prepare a paper on the "Propagated Hickories." I have passed around a printed slip giving the results of tests of some hickory nuts which will be useful in connection with the paper.

PROPAGATED HICKORIES

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

The title of this paper is a little misleading. In the nut contests the word "propagated" is restricted to those nuts which any nurseryman lists in his catalog and of which he is prepared to furnish grafted, budded or otherwise asexually multiplied trees. There are few hickories which are "propagated" in this sense and perhaps a better title would be "What We Know About the Hickories That Are Propagated Experimentally."

In a paper which Dr. Morris is to deliver he will tell us about top working hickory trees. This is a matter of great interest for top working existing trees is the method which at the present time promises to be the means of getting our first orchards of fine hickories in bearing condition.

The earliest instance of which we know anything of grafted hickories is that of the Elliot hickory owned by the late Whitney Eliot, of North Haven, Conn. This was awarded a prize offered by the late A. J. Coe of. Meriden Conn., for the best hickory nut exhibited at the December meeting of the Connecticut Agricultural Society in 1892. According to the Bulletin of the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture on "Nut Culture in the U. S.," 1896, this was the product of a grafted tree. I have never seen a specimen of the nut although I understand that the tree is still standing. I have been unable to get any definite information as to when the grafting was done, methods used, etc.

The next instance of successful hickory grafting and the one which is best known is the work of the late Henry Hales of Ridgewood, N. J. When he purchased his place some fifty years ago, he found on it a fine shagbark hickory tree. This had been standing longer than the oldest inhabitant could remember and it is supposed to have been one of the original forest trees of that section and spared on account of the excellent nuts it bore. It came to the attention of the late Andrew S. Fuller, author of the "Nut Culturist" published in 1896, and was described by him in 1870 in the Rural New Yorker. Shortly after this description, Mr. Hales received many requests for scions to which he generously responded and any propagator who thought he could propagate this hickory was given a chance to try, the conditions being that one-half of the successfully grafted trees should belong to Mr. Hales in payment for the scions sent. During the next ten years orders for scions were so numerous that the old tree was kept pretty well pruned. Mr. Hales received during the period only about two dozen trees from the thousands of scions which he sent out. According to Fuller's "Nut Culturist" these were largely grafted by Mr. J. R. Trumpey of Flushing, N. Y., now a part of New York City. Information which I received at the Hales place was that the trees growing there were grafted by Jackson Dawson of the Arnold Arboretum about 1891. Inasmuch as there appear to be trees of two different ages there it is probable that some trees were from one propagator and some from the other. The trees grafted by Jackson Dawson we know were on bitternut root and it seems likely that the others were also for one tree is not like the others and I was informed that that was a grafted tree, but the graft died and a shoot came out at the base of the graft which was thought to be from the graft but, after the tree had grown it became evident that it was not. The buds of this tree show evidence of the bitternut. The nuts, however are not pure bitternut and the tree is seemingly a bitternut x shagbark hybrid. All of the trees grafted by Jackson Dawson were bench grafted in the greenhouse on especially grown stocks. I have two trees on my place from Thomas Meehan & Sons, Germantown, Pa., propagated in the same way and, when received, the long tap roots were coiled up like springs showing that the trees had been grown in pots. These trees, however, have grown well since I planted them out though they were very small and feeble when set out. These grafted Hales trees at the Hales place bore nuts in eighteen to twenty years after grafting. They bore for about five years and then ceased bearing. I went to see them for the reason that I was informed by Miss Hales that the trees were not looking satisfactorily and she was afraid there was some disease on them. I requested the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture to allow Mr. S. M. McMurran, who has made a study of pecan rosette, to come and look at the trees for it seemed to me that they were similarly affected. He took specimens of the leaves and reported that he could find no evidence of insect or fungus trouble. He also made a careful examination of the soil, and the farm was gone over carefully looking at the pecan and hickory trees growing there of which there are a large number. Most of these did not seem to be in good condition although a few did. Tests made of the soil seemed to show that it was not the kind of soil in which hickories and pecans do their best. It was also ascertained that while Mr. Hales senior was living the trees had received an application of manure every year. Since his death they have not. This, in connection with the poorness of the soil for hickories, seems possible may be the reason for the cessation of bearing. It also seems likely that bitternut root is not a good stock for the shagbark. I have on my place two grafted Cedarapids trees, each of which when received was four years from the graft and four feet in height above the graft. One was on bitternut stock and one on shagbark. The one on shagbark stock had made about six inches the first year, a foot the second year, a foot and a half the third and two feet the fourth while in the case of the one on bitternut root the growths were reversed, two feet the first, a foot and a half the second year, a foot the third year and six inches the fourth year. Mr. Jones has also had the experience of grafting the Vest hickory on the bitternut, had it bear in two years, and then die. While the evidence we have on this subject is not conclusive as there may have been other factors which might have caused the trouble outside of the stock, it shows that the stock on which the different hickories are to be grafted is a matter of importance. Mr. Henry Hicks of Westbury, L. I., who a number of years ago became enthusiastic on the Hales hickory, has four grafted trees or those which he purchased for grafted on his place. One he has had twenty-seven years and it has not borne. It has been twice transplanted. He has two or three others which have not yet borne. Inasmuch as the buds of these trees are not all alike, it is very evident that they cannot all nave been grafted from the original Hales tree. The finest looking Hales hickory of which I know is on the place of Frederick E. Willets, Glen Cove, L. I. Mr. Willets could not tell me how many years it had been set out but it was quite a good many. It bears a few nuts but the tree has been disappointing in its performance. I examined it during the past summer and the nuts, of which there were not many on the tree, were dropping off. It was evident that some insect was attacking the husks which may account for the rather unsatisfactory bearing record.

In distinction from this rather unsatisfactory record of Hales trees we have great promise of something worth while in the only other bearing grafted transplanted hickory of which I can give information, Mr. Rush's Weiker tree. This was produced by. Mr. J. F. Jones when he was living in Monticello, Fla. A southern pecan nut was planted in 1902. It was root-grafted below the surface of the ground in 1903, sent to Mr. Rush in the spring of 1904 and planted out at that time. Mr. Jones says that the tree was not over eight inches high when sent. It bore its first nuts in 1917 and has borne a few every year since. This year the tree set full and had a good crop when I saw it last. The nuts borne by this tree are considerably larger than those of the parent Weiker tree. Inasmuch as the original Weiker tree has given us our best hickory bearing record, it seems not unlikely that this grafted Weiker tree may also be an unusually good bearer.

Against this slow record of grafted transplanted hickory trees, we have some remarkably quick results with top worked hickory trees. Mr. Jones has a bitternut tree now about five inches in diameter which was top worked in the Spring of 1916 to Fairbanks variety, ten grafts being put in, two of which blew out that summer or fall and were replaced the next spring. In 1919 all the grafts, the two year ones as well as the three year ones bore nuts, about 120 maturing. The tree set full of nuts in 1920, but caterpillers got on it, unnoted, and practically the entire crop dropped off. Mr. Jones also has a smaller bitternut tree top worked at the same time to Siers. It bore two nuts in 1919. He also has a mockernut tree top worked at the same time with Kirtland and which set some nuts in 1919 but which dropped off before maturity. It set quite a number in 1920. Mr. D. C. Snyder, Center Point, Iowa, has a shagbark hickory some twenty-five or thirty years old which was top worked shortly after it had begun to bear. In 1913 the four top limbs were top worked to Fairbanks hickory, the rest of the tree being undisturbed. In 1915 these grafts bore nuts and have borne every year since. In 1919 they bore two quarts. Inasmuch as this was a year when the hickory crop in that section was a failure it was thought to speak well for the bearing of the Fairbanks hickory. In 1916 four grafts of Dennis hickory were put in and three of Cedar Rapids. The Dennis grafts bore four nuts in 1918 and over a dozen in 1919. The Cedarapids bore one dozen in 1919 besides a number more which a squirrel got before Mr. Snyder did. Mr. William A. Baker of Wolcott, N. Y., top worked a bitternut tree to Fairbanks in 1917 and the tree bore ten nuts in 1919. Mr. Harvey Losee, Upper Red Hook, N. Y., grafted the young shoots of cut back hickories and out of three shoots so grafted had them bear in three, four and five years respectively. Dr. Morris has grafted a Taylor hickory on a small tree which bore five years after grafting. Dr. Deming on his place at Georgetown, Conn., has probably a greater collection of top worked hickories of various varieties than anybody else. These trees are growing finely and give promise of bearing early. A Taylor hickory on stock 1¼" diameter grafted, April 26, 1918 had ten nuts on it on June 27, 1920. A Griffin hickory grafted in 1915 which is now 2½" in diameter had 81 nuts on it on the same date. There seems to be no question but that anyone who has land with hickory trees one to four inches in diameter can easily and quickly change them into orchards of hickories bearing fine nuts by top working.

We next come to the relative merit of the various hickories of which we know. I was fortunate in securing for the 1919 contest enough specimens of the greater portion of those hickories which have been propagated experimentally to a considerable extent so that some information on this point can be given. The printed slip which I will pass around gives the results of these tests and will give a better idea of the different nuts than can be done in any way except by passing around samples. It will be noted from the slip that the nuts run very close indeed and it is very probable that another year these nuts would not show exactly the same results for it has been clearly shown that nuts vary greatly from year to year. There are other characteristics of hickory nuts which are of great importance which are not shown in the annual contests. These are the bearing records of the tree, its ability to stand various diseases and most of all how it will work out when grown in orchard form. This can only be told by experience. From the fact that, in the 1919 contest, of the ten varieties of the experimentally propagated hickories there was only a difference of five points between the highest and the lowest, it shows that the merit of each nut is sufficient so that all of these should be tested out in orchard form. In other words we should not for example select the Vest and Manahan as the best that we have and propagate them to the exclusion of the others. It is probable that there will be great differences in the orchard behavior of these various hickories shown as this is done and that then we shall be able to select the most desirable varieties. Some tests made recently on nine standard southern pecans the Schley, Burkett, Moore, Alley, Delmas, Moneymaker, Pabst, Stuart and Vandeman show a great difference between the highest and lowest in the number of points awarded, this difference being 10 points as against 5 in the cast of the hickories. The Hatch bitternut and Stanley shellbark noted on this slip are here not because it is believed that, as market nuts, they will compare with the first ten mentioned but because they are the best nuts we now have which are not shagbarks or of which the shagbark is not one parent. It is believed that those nuts will be valuable for hybridizing purposes.

There is one matter suggested by the slip on which I will touch although it is not properly within the scope of the subject set for this paper and that is the possibilities of hickory breeding. Of the ten hickories noted on the slip as receiving 70 to 75 points, four, it is agreed, are hybrids. The examination which I have made of the others leads me to believe that more of them are, but four out of ten with the possibility of more is sufficient to cause us to take notice. There are some nine hickory species native in the north eastern United States and they hybridize to a considerable extent. Some of these species show most remarkable differences in characteristics. The shagbark is unexcelled for quality of kernel. The shellbark bears nuts as large as the largest black walnut. The bitternut bears nuts with a thinner shell than any of the finest southern pecans and with a larger proportion of kernel. What we know about practical plant hybridization leads us to believe that we can combine the good qualities of these various species of hickories. Think of what it would mean to have hickories equal in quality of kernel to the best shagbark, of the size of the largest black walnut with a shell thinner than the thinnest shelled pecan we have even seen, and with a larger proportion of kernel.

While the hickory is the nut which has given as the most trouble in propagation and gives us the most trouble in transplanting and grows the slowest, it is certainly difficult to find one which gives more promise either in growing the fine hickories we now have or in breeding up better ones. I am convinced that as soon as we can furnish the fine hickories we now have in commercial quantities they will command prices equal to those paid for the finest pecans.

The President: I will call upon Mr. J. F. Jones, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who has the subject of "Selecting and Handling Scions."

SELECTING AND HANDLING SCIONS

J. F. Jones, Nut Specialist, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

In the selection of scions of nut trees for grafting the propagator should keep in mind the fact that the wood selected must be full of vitality and must be of solid, well matured growth, that will stand the maximum amount of exposure and hardship after being grafted, as the grafts and stocks of nut trees callous or heal very slowly in comparison to fruit trees, and the scions must be of solid, well matured growth if good results are to be obtained. These requirements usually go together however and if we select scions of solid, well matured growth, we usually get scions in which the tree has stored the maximum amount of "starch" or vitality.