MR. BECKER: Last summer a group of nut growers went to Lee Sommers', which is in the central part of Michigan. In the invitation to our nut growers I said, "This is the only pure Carpathian orchard we know in Michigan." That didn't set well with some of them and they took issue with me. In answering this issue, I said that Mr. Sommers had planted Carpathian Persian walnut seed that came from Poland direct. Many of us have a mixture. Even Mr. Shessler has the Hanson and Jacobs and a number of others. If he sells you seed, you are going to get it mixed. In a few years we will have a job keeping pure Carpathian.
DR. MACDANIELS: Isn't it a matter of straight terminology? Juglans Regia is the Persian walnut. Carpathians are a regional strain of Juglans Regia.
MR. CHASE: I think we all understand that.
MR. MACHOVINA: Can we speak of a Carpathian strain. Crath himself said there were many. He even found walnuts growing in clusters like grapes.
DR. MACDANIELS: It would be a regional group of clones with a certain origin not a strain in the genetic sense.
MR. STOKE: They are just Persian walnuts that happened to come from the
Carpathian region.
DR. CRANE: There is a little difference. I believe that in the northern countries we have had more or less inbreeding and we could consider them more nearly a line, not a strain, because of that. When the original seed was introduced by Reverend Crath, probably each one of those lots of nuts come from different trees, as a line, but, now this second generation stuff that's coming along, it's just Juglans Regia. It's a hardy Persian walnut.
MR. STOKE: I think I can offer a word of explanation of those growing in clusters. I have no doubt that when the barbarians swept over the wall centuries ago they brought Asiatic walnuts with them from as far as Manchuria. They grew in clusters there like butternuts and heartnuts. No doubt some of them reached Europe, and some of them may have hybridized with the Persian, and I think really that's the answer.
DR. MACDANIELS: The same situation existed with peaches 20 years ago. We had five geographical races of peaches that were more or less distinct. With the exception of one, the Peento, they have all lost their identity now because there has been no attempt to keep them distinct.
DR. CRANE: That's right.