Dr. Morris: As a general statement the same thing you get from working with animals we may expect to get in working with plants. The protoplasm of plants is now known to act like that of animals, but not quite so quickly or freely in response to cultural methods. We can breed to size and breed to quality and character of fruit, and we find we may do with plants just about what we do with animals, only not quite so quickly, because animal protoplasm responds more readily.
Mr. W. C. Reed: I would like to ask if in a cross between the Persian walnut and the shagbark hickory there is a cross pollenization, or is it an increased vitality given by the pollen? Is there really a cross there?
Dr. Morris: I made one cross between the Persian walnut and the shagbark hickory that was evidently a good hybrid. It showed character of both parents, but I lost that entire lot. I wasn't careful enough in protecting them. I have another lot of crosses between these two flowers in which the type often is so definitely shagbark hickory that I doubt if there is any walnut there at all. Under certain conditions we may get hybrids, yet miss it at another time, even when working with the same parents. Somebody has probably made a better study of this point and recorded better ideas. I think we may safely say that we may expect an actual cross between some walnuts and hickories.
Mr. McCoy: Would it be possible to cross the English walnut and the black walnut and produce a nut of superior quality?
Dr. Morris: Yes, it is possible to cross them, but you do not often get a nut of superior quality. The tendency seems to be to have a nut of thick shell and of not high quality, but if you make a thousand of those crosses, out of the thousand you may get a few of just what you want.
Professor Close: I want to ask if you are always careful to apply the pollen when it is well ripened?
Dr. Morris: Yes, I have always been careful to apply it at just the time when it was well ripened, and that is of great importance in its bearing upon Mr. Reed's question. If I have pollen which is quite ripe I may perhaps catch it upon an ovule, but if it is not ripe I won't got the cross. I may add it a little too early or too late when the pistillate flower is unprepared and I won't get a cross. If I get my pollen just at the right time upon the pistillate flowers I may have a good cross, between varieties which do not cross readily.
Professor Close: In my experience in breeding apples, formerly I always waited until the pollen was ripe, and that meant I had to cover the blossoms with bags and depend on the weather for conditions favorable to pollenation. But four or five years ago I began pollenating much earlier and I have had good results.
Dr. Morris: That is a very important point.
Professor Close: By doing that I know it is pollenated. I have been failing so many years I felt it was a loss of all the first part of the work.