Then I took up hybridization. I found there were many disappointments. It was difficult to be sure of securing reliable pollen and of getting it to the flowers at the right time and surely, so that we would have good hybrids instead of parthenogens which sometimes develop as the result of the female not making fusion with its mate.

On one occasion I remember I covered a lot of branches with large bags for pollenization, and going out a few days later to add pollen I found a wren's nest with two eggs in one of my bags. Now if a wren could lay two eggs in one of those bags the cross-pollenization was not likely to be a success. In this work, however, I find that we have a tremendous field opened up and one which might yield particularly to the ladies. It is very pretty work, it is nice work. It includes idealism, speculation, the idea of developing new trees, or trees that one has never seen before. After many failures in hybridizing I find now that by following rules it is simplified very much. Almost any one who is persistent enough may learn eventually to hybridize very easily.

The question of labeling trees and of keeping track of different specimens was one that gave me many disappointments. I would lose the labels, lose the records, so I was not able to tell truthfully about trees when visitors came to ask me about them. I know in one lot where I had a lot of hybrid trees, each one marked with a stake and number, the cow of a neighbor got over the fence into the field and the boy who came after that refractory cow found that to pull up those stakes gave him very convenient objects for throwing at the cow, and my labels were all hybridized.

This sort of thing was the kind of disappointments that I had in early experiences in growing nut trees. It is very essential, however, to keep good records and I find now that the best way is to use a galvanized iron rod with a metallic tag stamped with a machine and fastened on in such a way that it will not be injured by any sort of use. These galvanized rods, galvanized spring wire, are very durable if one is careful about placing them on the trees. That experience in keeping the labels was one which was very disappointing at first, but the question has now been finally settled.

The number of animals and birds that like a good thing is perfectly surprising, and in trying to raise my seedling nuts I have had great difficulty and have had to take up a new department of natural history in order to study the habits of rodents and of the birds. The crows have been, perhaps, the worst enemy, after the field mice, of the seedling nuts that were planted out in the field. But the crows may be kept away if we put up bean poles with a simple cotton string stretched between them at a distance of twenty-five or thirty feet. One of my friends who took my advice said that it didn't work, that he had not only put up the string but had fastened a piece of tin onto the string. That is just where he made a failure. The crows sized up the situation immediately. They sat on the fence and looked it over and made up their minds that those things were not meant for them, and then they went in and destroyed his grain. But a simple string between the poles will keep the crows guessing, and that alone will suffice to keep them out of the grain, nuts, or anything else.

These are a few rambling remarks which come to my mind, but still they belong to the experiences that we have in getting things under way in our experimental work. As to the outlook, there is no doubt whatsoever but that any man who is interested in the subject, who loves trees and loves plants, can manage all the problems. We shall eventually have horticulturists and amateur gardeners who will raise all of this great new food supply without difficulty.

We must now look for new food supplies. Wheat, grain, corn, and the other cereals are not going to supply this country indefinitely but the nut trees will. It is absolutely impossible to have over-population. It can't be done. Over-population as a social matter relates wholly to the habits acquired by people in using established kinds of food, but with the development of the nut trees, which furnish the appropriate starch, oils, and essentials of human diet, the danger of over-population becomes absolutely nil. We can not have over-population anyway, because nations of people reach cultural limitation, just as breeds of cattle run out, just as a breed of dogs runs out, just as a breed of any cultivated animal runs out. We are sure to do that. In all of our cultural periods we are sure to rise to a certain point, decline, and go out, and somebody else will follow, so that we never can really have over-population excepting as a matter of choice rather than one of necessity. On the question of food supply we may avert over-population by taking up something new to meet the conditions. That new thing right now is the development of the nut trees which furnish all of the food essentials and will take away any fear whatsoever of any over-crowding of the people of this country.

EVENING SESSION, SEPTEMBER 8th, 1922

The convention was called to order by the President at 8:30 o'clock P.
M.

MR. SPENCER: Mr. President: I have an idea I would like to present on behalf of the ladies. Quite a number of years ago I was entertained at dinner on the plantation of Mr. John Todd, St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana. It is on the banks of a stream lined with live oaks at a point where Evangeline and the Arcadians passed on that trip to the next county which is known as Arcadia. The whole country round there is full of reminders of the Arcadians.