We should popularize nuts through newspapers. It pays to advertise, and little notices in the paper are much more far-reaching than any other way of telling the story of the nourishment to be found in nuts.
As to the value of nut trees in landscape work, a real estate man told me that when he wanted a good price for a house he planted fruit trees at the back of the house, and nut trees on the sides. He would talk about those trees to the people who came to buy, and has sold many houses in this way.
Then take Arbor Day, and we have one in nearly every state in the Union. If we could get the papers and the forest magazines to talk about Arbor Day, and urge everybody to plant something, and particularly to plant a nut tree, it would not be long before we got results. I could not think of anything much more patriotic than planting avenues of memorial nut trees. Nut trees are better to look at than are many of the monuments erected, and the patriotic societies do not realize the truth in this. There is a case where with a stroke of the pen, the nut trees could be increased all over the country.
Then consider the home demonstration agents in the country. They have the women organized and are in touch with the men of progressive thought and feeling everywhere; and it seems to me that we could make more use of them. It would seem that if this organization could in some way raise the money to have someone talk at these demonstration meetings, it would not be long before the value and the beauty of nut trees would show the use of doing this splendid work. What more effective methods could there be than to go to the state meetings held by home demonstration agents twice a year, and talk nuts to those people? They go home and talk these same things to all of the women in their little organizations and communities. There is no rapid transit method more effective than that. Then, when the women are taking up a subject like that, men are apt to read it also.
Another form of advertising that is equally important is in men's organizations. A number of years ago Mr. Hutt went down through the eastern part of the state on the old farmers' institute work. He took with him a case fixed up to display nuts. He talked about them, and especially about pecans. The people had never seen anything but the little, old, wild pecan, and they became enthusiastic. When you get a farmer enthusiastic you are doing something. The people became quite enthusiastic and planted quite a number of orchards. Mr. Hutt left the department and the new man who came in was not particularly enthusiastic about nuts. Then Mr. Curran came into the work and decided there was nothing he could do better than to urge them to plant nut trees. He is trying to get an unlimited quantity of pecans and walnut trees planted and he hopes to have a large number of trees put in within a few years.
To paraphrase what Mr. Littlepage said this morning, in connection with the raising of hogs, in getting the world to plant more trees, to use more nuts and to appreciate the value of nut trees for both beauty and use, you need 90 percent of advertising; and let the 8 percent be the man and 2 percent be the nut.
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DR. MORRIS: Last year, when my experiments with the use of paraffin grafting had apparently been completed, I included what I knew of this subject in a little book, and this brought out letters from all parts of the country, in fact from all parts of the world, reminding me that I had not completed the subject of the use of paraffin in grafting. From tropical countries men complained that my suggestions about the use of one particular kind of paraffin, "Parowax," were not applicable to their part of the country where the paraffin would melt in the summer sun. Then, from some of the regions where the nights were cold, they said the paraffin would crack and leave the stocks bare, owing to the change of temperature.
We are consequently faced with a necessity for extending our information on this subject. My reason for presenting it, before I have completed investigations, is to get suggestions from members of the audience here, and from practical nurserymen. I have written a number of books on various topics, and have never sent one out without feeling sorry that it was not time for the next edition.
The theory is that if we cover a graft completely with melted paraffin, including the entire scion, buds and all, we have accomplished several things. In the first place, the paraffin prevents the graft from drying out before new cells can make union with cells of the scion.