So it comes down to a regional problem, and for that reason I think that the state should be the logical center for your close knit organization to test your varieties.
There is another reason. I don't believe that any group of growers facing a problem of this magnitude can get very far unless you secure continuity by tying your organizations in some way to your state experiment station. I think you have got to have your continuity by making your tie-up there.
DR. CRANE: That's right.
DR. ANTHONY: I have said a number of times in our own group that one of the great disadvantages of our amateur nut growers in Pennsylvania is that most of them are 70 years old or older. That's fine for them, but it's hard on the industry, because just the time that they should be giving us the most valuable returns, they aren't there. So to secure the continuity you want, you are going to have to tie in your experiments with the experiment station. You are going to have to make a group, you are going to have to incorporate, because you are going to face the problem of propagation. You might have one good tree, and it's of no value for you, and you have got to plant it in more than one spot to know how good it is.
If the Delicious apple or Grimes Golden had appeared in our seedling blocks, we'd have thrown them away. I know we have thrown many things out at Geneva which in other places might have survived. We took a number of those and planted them in Pennsylvania and found them worthy of naming. That means you have got to propagate in more than one place and you have got to propagate in conditions where you know you have got the demand.
And all of that means that you have got to have a tight legal organization. Valuable as the Northern Nut Growers Association is, I don't think you are going to get it out of your present organization. I think you have got to find some way to condense your stuff into some tighter organization. In Pennsylvania I think it's going to be a nut tester's council, legally organized, financially responsible, tied up to the experiment station, if we can make it just as the New Jersey council is.
The New Jersey council was a success because they had the best possible tie-up between Morris Plains, 15 or 20 miles on the other side, and a good nursery in between. That's why they made a success.
The New York State Fruit Testing Association is a success because they have had continuity. Mr. King has been manager of that association for 25 years, I think, and you have a legal organization doing its own propagation where they know the material is true to name.
Use your vice-presidents all you can, use every committee that you have but you have to have something that's tighter.
DR. CRANE: Thank you. Just one comment that I want to make. You have suggested an awful big camel to get over. Now, we are trying to start. If we could just get a little start towards the end we could grow into it.