The two items cracking quality need a little explanation. Last year 20 points were awarded for cracking quality and 5 points for plumpness of kernel. Plumpness was very difficult of estimation. It means the reverse of shrivelled. To assign values for this can only be done by appearance and it seemed impossible of measurement. A study of the nuts of the 1918 contest which were awarded high values for plumpness and those which were awarded low values showed that in no case was a nut which had a shrivelled kernel awarded a high value for proportion of kernel. Sometimes a nut with a plump kernel had a very thick shell and a low proportion of kernel but in no instance did a nut with a shrivelled kernel have a high proportion of kernel, so it was thought that for practical purposes the figure for proportion of kernel would answer very well to represent excellence in both characteristics. It was also evident that the ratio of the weight of the portion of the kernel which, after cracking, could be easily picked out with the fingers to the total weight of the kernel, which was taken to represent cracking quality last year, was capable of more refinement for it was noticed that of those nuts where the entire kernel could be easily picked out with the fingers after cracking that some were better crackers than others, for, in some instances, the entire kernel fell out. As the proportion of the kernel which could be picked out easily with the fingers is seemingly the most important this was still given 20 points and called "cracking quality commercial," and the figure representing the proportion of kernel which dropped out after cracking was called "cracking quality absolute," and awarded the 5 points formerly awarded to plumpness.
In the case of the hazel which generally has a cracking quality both absolute and commercial of 100% the item "freedom from fibre" was substituted for "cracking quality absolute." The hazel seems to be the only nut where this characteristic must be considered.
It is too bad that while practically all characteristics are determined with exactness to a single point and could be even more precisely determined, that the item quality and flavor of kernel to which 20 points are justly awarded has to be determined in so crude a manner as it is at present. It is true that formerly all characteristics were determined in equally crude manner and we should be glad that all others can be determined with precision but still having one quality not precisely determined, to a certain extent prevents exact determination of the others having the value it otherwise would. We can make only about five graduations in quality which would be differences of five points except at the top of the scale where it is 2 and an error in one gradation would make a difference of 5 points generally. When it is seen how close some of the nuts run, particularly the hickories, where the differences in total points awarded are generally only 1 point, with several of the same score, this crudeness of determination of one of the most important characteristics is the more regrettable.
The results of the 1919 contest on nuts of the various species are as noted below:
HICKORIES—128 ENTRIES
The results of the tests on the prize winning hickories are shown in the table on page 151.
What is said of the difficulty of identification as to species is particularly applicable to the hickory where it is known that many of the fine nuts that we have are hybrids. While no nut is noted as a hybrid unless it has been so proven by evidence which it is believed is beyond question, there is considerable question as to whether a number of the nuts noted as shagbarks are really pure shagbarks. It will take more observation and study than it has as yet been possible to give them to determine this point. It is to be noted, however, that the more study we put on the hickories notable for the excellence of the nuts they bear, the more we find that give suggestion of hybrid parentage.
Beside the hickories noted above which received a sufficient number of points to entitle them to one of the eight prizes awarded the measurements are given of the Hatch and Halesite bitternuts because they have the thinnest shell and highest proportion of kernel of any hickories yet discovered and of the Stanley hickory because it is the best shellbark of which we yet know.