Mr. Anthony and Mr. Sherman have been working over here in Pennsylvania. They have found a lot of new material known only to a few people. They are just wringing their hands over there to know how in this wide world this stuff can be evaluated, the good saved, and that which is not worthy of doing anything with, well, "just pass it up" and let it go. That's the way we make profits.
Their experience is no different from all the rest. We have nut growers with whom I have had correspondence in years past who want to propagate material that this Association should have flatly condemned years ago, because the majority of the group here knows it is worthless, but they just haven't done it. Now, it's time that we change this thing, or I will tell you frankly in a lot of ways the Nut Growers' Association has become a social institution, rather than one which we learn from and recommend practices to the new groups that are coming on to keep them from making mistakes.
Now, I have talked from the bottom of my heart tonight, and I want some of the rest of you here to express your opinions and give suggestions as to how we might do that.
MR. WEBER: Dr. Crane, I think I will start the ball rolling, and I think Ohio has taken the lead in the very thing you have been talking about. It's the Northern Ohio group. They have been very active in finding out the better nut varieties that were suitable to Ohio conditions, both the black walnuts and the hickories. They have conducted contests, both for black walnut and hickories. They practice what they preach. They have traded their information. They are up in the northern part, and I am down in the southern part, too far to be included with them, so I am not blowing my own horn; I am blowing it for the other fellows. And I think they are a worthwhile group, and if you look to the membership in this Association in Ohio, I think it has the largest membership. And you get that Northern Ohio group, they test out varieties, and a man will fight for a particular one in his group against the variety from another. And so they are not afraid to stand up and say what they think.
But having done that, we need the aid of our different state agriculture groups. You must have a place where they can go and put those trees on a testing ground so the people can go there and see them. You can go there to this Ohio experiment station and you will see this variety growing, or you go over to the other branch and see this variety growing, and then when they find the state has taken it up, it gives them confidence more than a fellow blowing his horn for one variety against another variety.
You have to get the members in their own states to form their own local organizations and carry out what you have been talking about here and find out in their particular states which are the best varieties. And then you get a starting point, and each individual state's agricultural experiment station should take it up, follow it up, if they have the funds. Where if one individual gives his mite and then his health fails or life fails, why, he has contributed his mite, and it will be perpetuated. But if it's on my place or someone else's place, the next fellow doesn't appreciate it, and if they need the wood handy, down comes that tree. It has no memories from then on, and it's not perpetuated.
So I think some of the Northern Ohio members—I think Mr. Smith is here, are there any other members? Silvis—deserve a lot of credit.
MR. McDANIEL: I would like particularly to hear if the Northern Ohio group has got together on a discard list. Have they agreed on any one variety they don't want to plant?
MR. STERLING SMITH: I am glad you brought out the black walnut. I am more familiar with it than with other species, and I have been personally thinking along your line for several years. We have in black walnuts probably over 200. I started to count them up one time. I got 196, and I know there were more than that, I don't know how many. And among those nearly 200 varieties of black walnuts I am confident there must be 150 at least that aren't worth being grown—that is, in Northern Ohio. They may be good in some other places, or they may be worthwhile for experimental purposes. But to grow them for commercial means or for home use, they are not good varieties. And I have suggested to different ones eliminating them, or trying to work out, say, maybe 25 or 50 and then from those 50 try to pick out ten. There has not much been done on it. There is a lot of difficulty in a situation like that.
DR. CRANE: That's right.