CONCLUSION
The committee thinks that a 20 year program along these 17 lines, or a modification of them, will eventually prove successful. If such an organization can offer farmers and all others interested in nuts and conservation a better walnut, filbert, hickory or chestnut suitable for Ohio soils and Ohio climate the effort would seem worth while.
So far people interested in nut culture have been called "nuts." Practical-minded people are apt to smile at such nut experiments, but a glimpse at our state proves that nut enthusiasts have vision, and a faith in the future; that they are modern Johnny Appleseeds with more of Johnny's methods but less of his madness.
The history of our state is a history of squandered natural resources, of get-rich-quick methods, of wanton destruction of all forms of plant and animal life. If this organization can in a small way stop the erosion of gullied hillsides, check the rampage of swollen rivers, arrest the fertility of Ohio farms from floating to the Gulf or the Ocean, if it can find some substitute for the magnificent chestnut trees now gone forever, if it can make better nuts grow where none or poor ones grow now, if it can sell conservation and a love of trees to every farmer in Ohio, this organization or any other will be conferring a rich legacy upon future Ohioans.