Black Walnuts—Thinness of Shell
Weight required to crack: Thinnest, Alley 110kg; thickest, Triplett 348kg.
| Weight in kg. | Points |
|---|---|
| 50 and less than 80 | 10 |
| 80 and less than 110 | 9 |
| 110 and less than 140 | 8 |
| 170 and less than 200 | 6 |
| 200 and less than 230 | 5 |
| 230 and less than 260 | 4 |
| 260 and less than 290 | 3 |
| 290 and less than 320 | 2 |
| 320 and less than 350 | 1 |
| 350 and less than 380 | 0 |
Transcribers note: Point 7 was missing in the original document.
Cracking Quality: This characteristic is perhaps the one which seems to most people the most difficult to measure, but, while it was some time before methods of measuring it did occur to anyone, its measurement is effected very easily. In cracking nuts a part of the kernel will usually drop right out, some times it is a large part, occasionally all, and sometimes it is but a small portion. A perfect cracker is one where the entire kernel drops out after cracking. This would have 100% cracking quality. When 4/5 of the kernel drops out after cracking and the remaining 1/5 can be extracted only by recracking or by picking out, the nut is said to have 80% cracking quality. In other words, the cracking quality is the ratio of the weight of the kernel which drops out after cracking to the entire kernel. The operations of determining cracking quality in practice are first, selecting five average nuts; second, cracking them and weighing the part of the kernels which drop out after cracking; third, extracting the balance of the kernels and getting the weight of all the kernels; fourth, dividing the weight of the part of the kernels which drop out after cracking by the total weight of the kernels, and the result is the cracking quality. After an examination of the figures of a large number of nuts, the table below was made up from which the number of points to be awarded for any given cracking quality is readily obtained. Taking the Lutz black walnut as an example again we find that the weight of the kernels which dropped out after cracking was 24 grams while the total weight of kernels was 32.5 grams which gives a cracking quality of 73.8% which would be awarded 13 points for cracking quality.