the question of the names of the varieties of northern nut trees,
particularly the names of the pecan trees. Twenty years from now there
will be a million people in the North who will gravely tell us the pecan
grows down South, not in Indiana, and that you can't grow them up here.
I haven't a doubt there will be a million people that will believe that
twenty years hence. How can we get that idea out of their heads? I think
we have an agency in the mere names of the trees which will cause people
to buy more, yes a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand more trees,
than they do at the present time. If we pick out one name, Indiana, what
does it mean? It will make a man ask questions, and if he has any
curiosity at all he will want to know if it grows in Indiana and if it
will grow in any state with practically the same latitude as Indiana.
But if he hears the name Schley, what does it mean? Nothing, because
practically everybody has quit thinking about Admiral Schley. I recall
eight varieties of northern pecans three of which have good names and
three perfectly worthless ones. Indiana, Kentucky and Green River are
the good ones. Green River is the least valuable because it is not well
enough known. Indiana and Kentucky are great names because they are the
names of great states. Then we have Busseron, Warrick, Posey and
Buttrick. The Busseron nut which grows up at Vincennes ought to be
renamed Vincennes. There will be thousands more sold in Vincennes when
it is known from the name that it did not originate in Pennsylvania but
that it is a product of Vincennes. My point is this, it gets a name that
shows it to be a northern product. I am not going to fight for that
particular name but it is growing at Vincennes and that is a perfectly
good reason for it to be named after that well known city. Now we come
to the Posey. It grows on the banks of the Wabash and ought to be named
the Wabash. Nobody knows anything about Posey County and what the reason
is for the name, but the banks of the Wabash where it grows have been
made famous in song. We can hook a sign on that pecan that will sell
twenty or thirty thousand more Poseys than are sold now. Next we have
the Buttrick which is found growing in Illinois. That is the reason why
those Buttrick pecans will sell under the name of Illinois. It is named
for a man but it doesn't mean anything in the world but women's dress
patterns and is not a good name for a pecan.
MR. MCCOY: A change in a name like Buttrick to Illinois is a good one.
Any name like this that tells by itself the fact that the nut is from
the North is worth a lot to the people who want to sell pecan trees, and
to the people who want to eat pecans, and can buy them reasonably.
Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I move that a special committee be appointed to
consider changing the names of these pecans and giving them names
showing that they are northern nuts.
MR. POTTER: I second that motion.
THE PRESIDENT: It has been moved and seconded that a committee be
appointed to consider the matter of changing the names of some of the
pecans.
A MEMBER: Isn't there a Vincennes in Europe?
THE PRESIDENT: There might possibly be more suggestions, and we should
be glad to hear from anyone along this line.
MR. REED: I agree with Professor Smith in part of his remarks. We have a
walnut called the Ontario from Greene County, Michigan. If we should
call it Michigan that would indicate where it came from. But it is
widely known now as the Ontario, and would it be best to change its
name, even though it comes from Michigan?
MR. MCCOY: Wouldn't it have been better to have called it Michigan to
start with?
MR. REED: I think so.
MR. MCCOY: We have pursued these things for many years and we have made
some misnomers in naming them. I think it's a good idea to change them.
MR. POTTER: I am very much pleased with the idea Professor Smith has
advanced for renaming these trees. They don't mean anything now as he
says, and I think it would be a great forward stride for this
association to rename these trees.
MR. SIMPSON: I think Professor Smith's idea is a move in the right
direction. We were the first people that propagated any of these
northern varieties, and my idea is to call that variety Indiana, for the
very reason he mentions here, that it distinguishes it as a northern
variety. I think his suggestion ought to be followed out as far as it is
possible. At least with several varieties.
THE PRESIDENT: The chair takes the opportunity of saying that the
suggestion meets his most hearty approval. I have taken up pages of
letters in writing to people about nuts, and explaining to them that the
nursery from which they bought had nothing to do with the hardiness of
the tree, that it was the location of the parent tree that determined
this. I was struck by an advertisement last year which said, "buy them
from the nursery furthest north." That hasn't a thing in the world to do
with it. You may take some of this very wood we have here and propagate
it on the McKenzie River, or the Yukon, and say you are selling trees
propagated in Alaska, but the hardiness all depends on where the parent
tree is. These parent trees have been placed there by nature, and when
we distribute them we will distribute what nature has put into the
parent tree. These trees are there because they have withstood all the
climatic conditions, and nothing would be of more value, it appears to
me, than to adopt the suggestion for renaming them. In the first place
many of these trees are named for men not entitled to have them named
for them. Many of those who own these trees do not know their value and
object to anyone that knows anything about a nut tree going in and
getting bud wood, and are contrary and mean about it. It is very rare
that the importance of these seedling pecans is known to their owners,
and they are not entitled to any consideration themselves. They are
generally discovered by some outsider who had to beg to go in and get a
stick of bud wood. Is there any further discussion?
MR. C. A. REED: You are right about that. But I would like to go on
record in opposition to this movement. When pecans are recorded in the
standard works the names stay. The rule is generally accepted that where
the names have once been recorded no other name can be permitted. It is
easy enough for us to vote to change a name but not so easy to change it
in actual practice. How many of us will know these pecans that Prof.
Smith has mentioned by any other names than those that have already
been accepted. Suppose we do rename them, we shall have to explain that
they are the old pecans under the new names.
MR. MCCOY: We remember well when we changed the name of the Green River.
We decided that among ourselves here. The Posey pecan used to be the
Grayville and you know when we changed it. I call it the Grayville yet
because I got used to that. You changed it to Posey thinking it was from
Posey County but it really is from Gibson County. I have no doubt many
of these men here call it the Grayville, and then lots of men that hear
me call it the Grayville ask me what I mean as they don't recognize it
under the old name. I am in favor of changing these names. I named some
of them and you know it, but I didn't always name them right and you
have changed them here. Can't we do it again if it will sell them?
THE SECRETARY: What is the motion exactly?
THE PRESIDENT: As I understood it was to appoint a special committee to
take up the matter, and consider changing these names.
THE SECRETARY: Why should we do that when we have already a committee on
nomenclature? What is the use of a special committee?
MR. POTTER: The special committee will report quicker.
THE PRESIDENT: If it belongs to the committee on nomenclature to
consider the matter it will be best to do it now, immediately. If the
names are to be changed they ought not go another year, and if not to be
changed it ought to be known. The chair will be glad to entertain a
motion that the committee report tomorrow on it.
MR. POTTER: I make a motion that the matter be referred to the committee
on nomenclature and that they be ordered to report tomorrow.
THE PRESIDENT: Do I hear a second?
A MEMBER: I second the motion.
C. A. REED: I am the chairman of that committee and I could not report
tomorrow so I will ask that if it is to be taken up by committee that a
special committee be appointed.
THE PRESIDENT: It is Mr. W. C. Reed who is the chairman of that
committee, to which committee was added C. A. Reed and R. L. McCoy.
PROFESSOR CLOSE: I would like to ask Mr. Reed if he is absolutely sure
about the rule he has just quoted of the American Pomological Society,
that a name cannot be changed. I don't remember that rule.
MR. REED: Mr. Taylor was the framer of that rule and in actual practice
he has adhered to the first name used, and did at the time he was
secretary of that society.
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.
THE PRESIDENT: We are very glad to have heard from the state
entomologist and we want his assistance. We are trying to steer away
from bugs and we want his suggestions and help at any time.
We have a number of interesting people on the program yet this
afternoon, but the chair is going to take the liberty of asking the
president of the National Nut Growers Association, Dr. C. A. Van Duzee
to talk to us on any subject that he cares to discuss. I know him well
enough to know that anything he says will be good enough to hear: I know
him personally, the most of you know him by reputation. He has some
pictures here, and I shall take the liberty of passing them around for
you to look at, and I am going to say that these are pictures it
certainly does my heart good to see. They are pictures of his orchard
down South. Just pass them around please.
COL. VAN DUZEE: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I told your
President the first thing when I got in this morning that I didn't care
to have any place on the program; that I would be glad to talk at any
time on any subject he wished me to, and do anything I could to help
along. That puts me in bad to start with. As I have listened to the
discussions of your meeting the thought has come to me that you are
following along very much the same pathway that the southern nut growers
traversed five or six or seven years ago. We are a little further along
in the growing of nut orchards in the South, but you are certainly going
to get along and be abreast of us in time. Perhaps I may be able to do
more good if I confine myself to a few practical suggestions as to how I
think nut orchards can best be produced. Those pictures represent an
orchard which I have in southwestern Georgia and have grown under
adverse conditions. The pictures show the culmination of years of
earnest effort. They represent what I consider to be a very reasonable
success from a practical standpoint. I am a farmer and the first thing I
require of my farm is that it shall pay. I have no theories; I have no
ideals but those which must stand that test. I am in farming to make it
a success; it is my business and everything I do must stand that test.
If it doesn't pay it is not successful. That orchard represents the
culmination of years of study of the problem of how to grow a pecan
orchard on my ranch. That bunch of hogs represents about one hundred and
fifty we selected about three weeks ago to put in our early peanut patch
down there to finish them up as pork, but it does not show my breeders
or young stock. I could talk hogs to you until the cows come home. I set
my mark a year ago last spring, after being twice wiped out by the
cholera, I set my mark at fifty thousand pounds of meat from my orchard,
and I want to say I have animals now in the orchard and in the peanut
field together to make that and a little margin to the good. I expect
our orchard will produce this year more than fifty thousand pounds of
hams, bacon and lard. The reason I am talking about this is that I want
to emphasize the fact that the growing of nut trees is a business
proposition. I want to say, in passing, that I believe no better thing
could happen to the people who live in America than that every man who
owns land might plant a few nut trees. It is a notorious fact that the
nut trees which do the best, and which make the most money for the man
who plants them, are the ones planted in the garden and immediately
about the home where the conditions are favorable for the best
development. It is also true that all the successful pecan promotions
that have been put over on the American people have been built upon the
records of those individual trees, which were grown under the most
favorable conditions. That is the source of all that magnificent
literature, and all these people that have been inveigled into these
promotions in the South are going to be disappointed. That orchard in
the photographs is eight years of age, or will be this year, as it was
planted seven years ago last February. It has never paid a dollar of
profit. You won't find any literature on nut orcharding in the South
that will convey any such impression as that. I do expect it to pay this
fall a small margin of profit. I won't attempt to explain all that but
will say that an orchard must be eight or ten years of age before you
may expect or hope for a reasonable profit. After that it ought to pay
well. It is well worth going after because it is one of the most
legitimate, safe, satisfactory business opportunities we have ever
found. I don't know anything that pleases me more as a business man than
the growing of a large orchard of nut trees, and I assure you,
gentlemen, you must bring to that orchard the same degree of skill,
energy and patience that must be brought into any large business
proposition to make it a success. My own idea is that the nut orchard is
a legitimate part of the general farming operation. If you travel from
one end to the other of this country you will see that it is covered
with apple orchards. Small apple orchards were a part of the original
farming operations. The fact that they have been neglected does not
alter the situation at all. If the owners of those orchards had given
them proper growing conditions, they would have been successful. In the
same way I say the successful nut orchard is going to be a legitimate
part of the general farming operation.