The Secretary: A good many requests are received by the secretary for information as to what nut trees to plant. My advice usually is that they get the catalogues of all the different nurserymen on our approved list and select from those catalogues as many nut trees of each variety recommended by the nurserymen as they wish and give them the best cultural conditions they can. I don't see that we can recommend any particular varieties. There are few enough grafted varieties of nut trees obtainable, and I do not see that we can, as an association, recommend any particular varieties. I would like to have suggestions.
Mr. Olcott: I Don't Think It Is Advisable for the Association To go into that detail. I think that as the association has endorsed a list of nurserymen, so long as those nurserymen keep within boundary and retain that endorsement that is sufficient guarantee to the public.
Mr. Reed: We cannot recommend the different varieties because they have not been tested out and fruited. In the National Nut Growers' Association data are obtainable because they have been worked out by experiment stations and by individuals. But in this association where varieties are just being discovered and have not been disseminated and tried we have got to test them. We haven't got developed beyond the infant class in this Northern Nut Growers' Association.
A Member: I realize that the thing is in an experimental stage, but since I have been at this meeting I have been asked by two different people here if I could give them any information as to what varieties to plant. That is a very live question for a person here for the first time and he wants a primer.
The Secretary: We had a circular, now exhausted, giving the best information known at that time. It gave the method of procedure from the cultivation of the land until the nut trees were advanced several years in their growth, covering it in detail in so far as it lay in the secretary's ability to give it at that time. The same advice perhaps would not be given now but it would be practically the same thing. It may be desirable that we reprint something of the kind for the person who wants to begin the cultivation of nuts and has no knowledge on the subject.
Mr. Jones: I think the association might do something of the kind. We could have a map of the states for instance, and have that outlined in belts and varieties specified that would be somewhat likely to succeed in those belts.
Mr. Chairman: I think it is only a question of time when that will be done. In the National Association that has been worked out, what they plant in Florida what they plant in west Georgia, what they plant in Mississippi, and what they plant in all the different sections. I think it is only a question of time when it will be worked out by this association. Every year will bring in new data. You will find in the National Nut Growers' Association that good reports on new varieties of nuts from year to year keep accumulating. From that we get data very definite for certain varieties. I expect the members of this association will know lots of them. They have become past history in nut growing in the south. We have got past those poor things and in to something that is definite and satisfactory.
Mr. Bartlett: Would it be possible and advisable for the association to have such a thing as an experimental orchard, provided they could get somebody to take care of such a place? There is a man in this room who has plenty of room and facilities for taking care of an orchard.
The Chairman: That is worthy of attention but I do not know whether the association is in a position to take care of it. In my paper yesterday I spoke about putting it up to the experiment stations.
Col. Van Duzee: The experiment stations are at the service of the people and if you will call upon your stations repeatedly they will respond eventually. It is going to take some little time but it seems to me that they are the logical people to carry it out. We have found in the south that the behaviour of varieties in different localities was so different that we have been obliged to wait until each locality had something of history to guide us. I suppose it would be a very good plan if all who are interested in nut culture in the North would convey the information to their experiment stations that they are desirous of having these orchards established. Eventually the country could be covered with little experimental plots where the information obtained would be reliable, where the work could be under the supervision and inspection of people who are paid by the state for that purpose.