DR. MORRIS: Practically all hickory grafts will fail under such circumstances, but practically all hickory grafts will catch if they are covered with melted grafting wax of the right sort, provided that the scions and stock are also of the right sort.
THE SECRETARY: May we now have the President's address?
THE PRESIDENT: Before I begin I wish to call to your attention this pamphlet regarding the fifth Mid-West Horticultural Exposition, to be held in the Hippodrome, Waterloo, Iowa, November 11 to 16, 1924. It will be under the auspices of the Iowa State Horticultural Society, co-operating with its afflicted societies and the Greater Waterloo Association. The exposition will cover the Mid-West territory, from Pittsburgh to Denver. I wish especially to mention the printed list of premiums on page 27. Mr. S. W. Snyder, Center Point, is superintendent of this department. Cash premiums in Department b-Nuts, amount to $289. In addition there will be a grand sweepstakes, a trophy cup, donated by a member of the Northern Nut Growers' Association, for the exhibitor winning the greatest number of points. Anyone interested could write to the secretary, Mr. R. S. Herrick, State House, Des Moines, for a printed premium list. If any members of our Association have pet nuts of a variety which they would like pushed to the front now is the chance. Snyder Brothers are offering special premiums for new nuts unnamed and unpropagated.
The object of this association, as defined in its constitution, is "the promotion of interest in nut-bearing plants, their products and their culture," and as its name implies, in the northern part of this country. Without going into detail it seems to me that we have achieved the object of our association, at least to the extent of making practical use of our accumulated knowledge. Public interest has been aroused, which may become stale. Articles have appeared in magazines and newspapers from time to time on subjects relating to nut culture. We are also on a continual lookout for new varieties, and those of our members skilled in the art are constantly improving and working out new methods of grafting and budding, particularly as evidenced by Dr. Morris' work entitled "Nut Growing." We know approximately how soon a grafted nut tree, especially the black walnut, will begin to bear. At Mr. Jones' Nursery, Lancaster, Pa., an Ohio black walnut tree in the nursery row bore a cluster of seven nuts 17 months after the graft was placed. Mr. J. W. Wilkinson, of Rockport, Ind., has demonstrated that grafted northern pecan trees bear early and abundantly for their size.
We have given advice conservatively in reply to all inquiries relative to nut-bearing plants, perhaps too much so. Much honor and credit is due to certain members of our association for their untiring work and efforts in its behalf. It is not necessary to mention names as I am sure most of you present know to whom I refer. Our annual reports testify to their splendid work.
From this time forward I believe we should adopt the policy of boldly advocating the planting of orchards of nut trees. The intending planter will decide for himself what variety he will plant, and as a guide he should judge from the wild varieties growing in his vicinity. By so doing he cannot go very far astray in what will be to him a new venture. Of course certain varieties will be restricted to certain limited areas. This applies particularly to the introduced varieties, as distinguished from the native nut-bearing trees.
The black walnut has a wider range than any of the other nut trees. Travel wheresoever you will about the country and you will observe wild black walnut trees growing almost on every farm. The planting of the Persian, or English walnut, as it is more generally known, has had more of a popular appeal, perhaps from the fact that we are accustomed to seeing clean, smooth nuts of uniform size of that variety in almost every grocery store, the kernels of which may be extracted without great effort. The black walnut, on the other hand, has been tolerated as a sort of poor relation, and has been given no particular attention, because we have been used to seeing it around. It has not been made to do its share of contributing towards its keep. Our earliest recollections of it bring to mind bruised fingers as a result of our endeavors to crack the nuts and the tedious work of manipulating a darning needle to extract the kernels, which we usually picked to pieces in the process. We now know that we simply did not have the right kind of black walnuts. We should put our accumulated knowledge to practical use to urge on every occasion the planting of nut orchards, especially of approved varieties of the black walnut. This I understand is what the United States Department of Agriculture is advocating, and we should co-operate all we can with the department in that recommendation.
It will, no doubt, be urged that sufficient grafted black walnut trees are not available for orchard planting on a large scale. This, no doubt, is true, but on many farms there are wild black walnut trees of a size suitable for grafting or top-working. Grafting wood may be obtained in larger quantities than the grafted trees. Those of our members skilled in the art have not been selfish in imparting their knowledge to others and are always ready and willing to instruct others in the art. Most owners of these trees would only be too glad to substitute profitable tops for their trees in lieu of their unprofitable ones.
I believe that at all our meetings we should have practical demonstrations in budding and grafting, as this will tend to arouse the interest of the uninitiated and will spur the initiated to greater perfection.
During the past year there has been a discussion relative to the calling of the black walnut by some other name. Personally I believe we should not attempt the change. The public will not understand and it will take them a long time to become educated to the change. Valuable time will be consumed in picking out a new name. Let us take the name as we find it. Properly handled, after the husks are removed, the walnuts will not be as black as they are painted, and besides, we do not eat the shell anyhow. The quality of the kernel will make its appeal. The trouble with all of us has been that too much attention has been given to the looks, rather than the quality, of our food stuffs. Quality has been sacrificed for looks. Various illustrations of this come to mind with all of us.