Professor Close: Have you not in mind the rule that a name like Posey being given this variety no other variety can be given that same name. I think that is the rule you are thinking of.
Mr. Reed: No, but that is true too. You know we had the Sovereign pecan, and after that name had been established Mr. Taylor wrote up that variety for the yearbook, and the name had been changed then to the Texas Prolific, but he still retained the name of Sovereign for the reason that it had been called that before.
Professor Close: It seems to me that an organization could change a name. I think the idea is a good one. Take the name Indiana. I think that name ought to be given to the very best seedling variety that is a native of that state. I don't know whether the Indiana is the best one or not, but it is now too late to change that. If it is not the best the name will have to stick to the variety to which it has been given, even if later on better varieties are found.
Mr. McCoy: I know there are some extremely fine pecans on the Illinois River because I have some samples of them, a good bit better than the ones we have, and I suggest that we reserve the name Illinois, which would be suggestive of both the river and the state, for one of them. I know the nuts are there and I think they are very fine. The Illinois River has more pecans on it than the Wabash.
Dr. Deming: I second the motion.
The President: It has been moved and seconded that the matter of changing the names of these nuts as suggested by Dr. Smith, be referred to the committee on nomenclature, and that they be instructed to report tomorrow.
(Motion carried.)
The President: We have with us this afternoon, the state entomologist, Mr. Baldwin, who knows many things of interest to nut growers, and we shall be glad to hear from him.
Mr. Baldwin: Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Nut Growers Association: I am wholly unprepared to make a talk before this association and must say I am not sufficiently familiar with nut culture to be able to tell you anything of interest along that line of work. Your discussion relative to the pollenization of plants was intensely interesting and clear. There is no use in trying to dodge the fact that every plant has a father and mother, and that father and mother also have fathers and mothers, the same as we have. The reason I am not just the same as you is because I have a different father and mother, and the reason I am not just the same as my brother is because the characteristics of the parent may show in one individual and not another. If your pecan trees should stand out in an isolated situation and pollenate themselves the individual nuts would not all be the same. We have peaches that come nearly true to name, and the same is true of the Snow apple that has been grown in the St. Lawrence valley for generations. The pollenization of budded and grafted fruit trees or nut trees is brought about, in my opinion, wholly by the surroundings or environment of that tree. The well known experiments of the Geneva Experiment Station have very satisfactorily proved that the variety does not change except in so far as the environment changes it. Of course there are some things in nature we do not understand as where very decided deviations, or wholly distinct varieties arise; but the general rule holds, that whenever you propagate trees, and get your buds from some variety having merits, those merits will be transferred to the trees that are budded or grafted, and will remain in them while the surrounding conditions remain the same, and changes in the fruit will be effected only by changes in the locations in which the trees grow.
I suppose that as I am the entomologist of this state you expected to hear some discussion of things of interest to you in this particular field, but I came wholly unprepared for that. In this state so far as the nut growers industry is concerned we have not done anything at all. There is a large field for work but I must confess I am wholly unprepared to give you a talk on this subject. Where I was raised, back in Pennsylvania, we have several well known bugs that the nut growers have to contend with, and they are especially abundant with the chestnut. That of course would not be of so much interest to the people of this state until the chestnut growing industry has developed more than at present. I am very glad to be with you and the discussions I have heard have been very interesting.