worthy of at least some time and thought upon the part of all persons
interested in promoting the welfare of the community, state or county in
which they live. Those who will do their share, and there are thousands
of them if the subject can be properly presented, can add largely to the
food supply of the nation, and provide real delicacies for every table
in the homes of the poor as well as in the mansions of the rich. It
would be but a few years before we would have in size, and quality the
aristocrats of the nut family, in walnuts, hickory nuts, butternuts,
even beech nuts, the same as in fruits we have the Bartlett pear, the
Northern Spy apple, the Naval orange, the Crawford peach, or the
Brighton grape.
Work of inestimable value is being done by our membership in propagating
improved varieties that will be rich and lasting in results. We cannot,
however, afford to halt for this development of species as our own time
is too short, but we can cause to be planted millions of seedlings out
of which will come many choice varieties of the future. We would have
had them now had our forefathers realized what could be accomplished
along this line and the necessity for doing it.
Therefore I would urge with all earnestness that the work be not further
postponed, but that we bend every energy to bring about an awakening in
this matter that will cause general activity throughout the entire
United States. There are several ways of doing this, any one of which
should bring results. The only question about any of them being, who can
spare the time necessary for this work. My pleasant acquaintance with
the members of this Association proves you all to be one hundred per
cent Americans, standing well up in your business and professions, and
leaders in the civic life of your communities. These excellent points to
your credit, really deter each and all from giving time throughout the
year to the Association's work and permit only the annual gathering and
the events connected therewith that are largely spasmodic only in action
and effort.
The Association should be made large enough and strong enough
financially to provide a Secretary with proper clerical assistance and
fair compensation for work well done.
From fifty to two hundred members can be easily secured in every state
in which the Northern nuts grow. Officials of government, States,
counties and cities are ready to join in the movement. Road builders,
owners of cut-over and other lands only need to have their attention
called to what can be accomplished and the great majority will unite
with us. The work of the American Forestry Association has promoted our
cause also, and the establishing, and naming of historic trees
throughout the land can well be made a feature of our plans. Only a day
or two ago a Michigan paper carried the following item:
MOUNT VERNON WALNUT TS THRIVING IN INGHAM
Mason. Sept. 26.--Summit R. King, a pioneer of Mason, who was
present when the Republican party was born "under the oaks" in
Jackson county, has evolved a plan for raising historic trees in
Ingham county.
In 1906 he visited the tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon and while
there gathered some black walnuts from a tree on the grounds. He
planted those and his trees are now in bearing.
He has placed a quantity of the nuts in the hands of the county
school commissioner, Miss Daisy Call, to be given to the rural
schools that the grounds may be beautified with trees planted in
memory of George Washington.
Why not have Mount Vernon walnuts thus distributed throughout the Union.
Every school boy and girl in the land would be delighted to get them for
planting.
The supply would not equal one hundredth part of one per cent of the
demand for them. Then select throughout the country other special or
historic trees of various kinds or varieties of nuts and still I am sure
the supply would not begin to equal the demand. Long ago I began to
arrange for nut crops from some of these historic trees, planted by
Washington at his beautiful Mount Vernon home, now the Mecca for prince
or pauper and all those millions who love the freedom of glorious
America.
Those nuts will be planted in the parks and on the grounds of the people
of my home city this very year by the children of our schools who are
now in their moulding being taught to revere the name of the father of
our country.
This very act of patriotism will cause thousands of boys and girls to
have fixed in their minds for youth or age the value of planting the
useful trees that will in later years produce food of the very best
character for the human race. Carry this message into every city,
village and school district and the good work will be duplicated
thousands of times and then the movement in which we have so earnestly
engaged will have brought forth fruit in great abundance so that even
the great majority of those living today, and certainly the generations
to come must give this organization and its founders great credit for
real and lasting benefits that will prevail for centuries to come.
We all desire at this very important period in our existence as an
Association, to strengthen our forces and enlarge the scope of our work.
To do it at once let me suggest the early choosing and naming of live
vice-presidents in every state that may be united with us in membership;
also a general committee on legislation. This committee can do much the
coming year when legislatures throughout the country will be in their
regular session, to cause the adoption of laws similar to the Michigan
Statute known as the Penney Act, which provides for the planting of nut
and other food bearing trees along the public highways.
It is one of the most progressive enactments in recent years and its
good features should be adopted by every State, and the Federal
Government as well, by applying its provisions to National highways
also.
In conclusion I wish to thank each and every officer and member for
uniform courtesies and favors extended to me throughout the year. My
only regret being that official duties, extended traveling, and other
unforeseen demands upon my time have prevented me from giving the close
personal attention to every detail of the Northern Nut Growers
Association business that it otherwise would have been my great pleasure
to have done.
My gratitude is cordially extended to each and every member.
* * * * *
MR. B. G. FOSTER: Mr. President and Fellow Members: I realize that
children should be seen and not heard and I am merely a child in this
organization. At the same time I believe under modern conditions
children are being more and more heard and the older people are being
put more and more in the background. So I am going to take the liberty
of making a few remarks particularly with reference to the president's
address. This is my first attendance at a meeting of the Northern Nut
Growers' Association and I have profited very greatly by it. I have
become very much interested in nut culture. In a small way I am
stumbling along and learning something of the work and the development
of this industry. At present it is merely a fad with me but I do not
know but what it may become something more as I get into it. I have been
particularly impressed this morning with the address of the president.
There were one or two suggestions that he makes that I wish to refer to.
I think it is an excellent suggestion to get the children interested in
nut culture through historical nut trees if nuts can be secured from
such trees and delivered to different school authorities.
Another is the question of having a representative from every state. I
would like to inquire from the secretary if some such provision has been
adopted.
THE ACTING SECRETARY: We have always had a list of state vice-presidents
which you will find in each one of the reports. Those state
vice-presidents have been selected because of their being the most
active members in each particular state but they have never been
especially active more than to turn in some communication about their
work. I have never been able to get any of them to make any special
campaign for new members.
MR. FOSTER: Then, as I understand it, the president's idea is to urge
these vice-presidents to take a more active interest in the affairs of
the association.
THE PRESIDENT: That is the point I desire to make.
MR. MORRIS: When the constitution of the United States was drawn up it
was said to be "insanely ideal." We do not have to stretch our
imaginations this morning to the point of a question of our sanity when
our president's compositions are put before us. His paper seems sanely
ideal. There is only one thing that interests a child more than history,
(unless it is Sunday school), and that is a dollar bill. Now if we are
going to approach the children let us introduce the pragmatic side of
giving the child an object lesson showing where the planting of a nut
tree will bring a return in dollar bills that will ripen along with the
leaves every autumn instead of just leaves alone. We should have in
connection with various educational institutions a few object lesson
trees. It seems to me that this is a responsibility of the state. A
number of responsibilities have been put upon the state in the past and
a number of responsibilities have been put upon the educational
department in every state. So many of them, in fact, that hardly any
legislature will stand without hitching when there is a question of
diversion of "pork barrel" funds away from river and harbor
appropriations toward education. We can show that very much larger river
and harbor requirements will follow if our children raise so much of
this great new feed supply that we have more things to transport. The
question may be taken almost seriously from that point. In fact if you
give further consideration to the matter it seems to me that this
statement of mine, made somewhat in the spirit of levity, is like many
other statements made in the spirit of levity. It has a basis in real
fact. The development of that basis I will leave to your imagination.
MR. MCGLENNON: In regard to Dr. Morris' remarks relative to the
financial consideration, that appeals to me with peculiar force and I
think we can very materially provide for it in an enlarged membership.
For some time I have been giving very serious thought to the subject of
enlarging the membership of the Northern Nut Growers Association. I
think quite a substantial gain was made last year and I believe that a
very large gain can be made this year. I think we ought to have a
membership in the neighborhood of a thousand anyway. I believe we can
increase it this year to at least 500. Probably I am particularly
fortunate in having a source of supply of membership that perhaps the
rest of the members have not, through the L. W. Hall Company. This
company is handling our improved filberts and is getting a large number
of orders and the people who have received plants during the past couple
of years seem to be very much pleased with them. In many instances they
have already borne fruit. The Hall company has received splendid letters
in regard to them. In the fall and in the spring the Hall company sends
out a large number of catalogues. This fall they will send something
like a thousand, in the spring from five to seven thousand and in each
of these catalogues the literature of the Northern Nut Growers
Association can be included. We experimented a little last year along
this line and I believe Mr. Bixby will bear me out in saying that there
was quite a tangible response. I got a few members in and about
Rochester through friends but I believe that I can almost guarantee at
least a hundred members myself this year and probably more, particularly
through the medium of the Hall agency. But, as Dr. Morris says, or
practically said, there is nothing in this world that talks louder than
a dollar so I thought I would come here prepared to back up my position
and to guarantee at least 25 members for this year.
There is another matter to which I think we ought to give serious
consideration and that is the matter of the American Nut Journal. It is
the only nut journal, as I understand, in the country and I believe
there is an inestimable future for it if we seize our opportunity or
enable Mr. Olcott to seize his. At this time, I believe, he is not
getting the support that he ought to have from this Association and the
other nut associations of the country. He is a very able man, at one
time the editor of the Post Express in Rochester, the classiest paper in
Rochester, and we have some classy ones there, he is an educated man of
large experience and very versatile and it seems to me he ought to have
substantial support. So I came here with a certified check for 25
memberships to the association and 25 subscriptions to the American Nut
Journal as a guarantee of good faith. I believe I can add 75 more.
There are some other things that I think we ought to give consideration
to and that is the work that is being done by Dr. Deming and Mr. Bixby.
I think these men should have special and substantial support, real
support, money support, so that they can do things as they ought to be
done at the time they ought to be done. I think we are selfish in asking
these men to give so much of their time and attention and money to the
affairs of this association without giving them better support. If we
have more members we will have more money and more members will bring
more members. This propaganda will be spread far and wide. The interest
in nut culture is growing by leaps and bounds. I think this is the time
to strike as a scientific organization. I think the Northern Nut
Growers' Association is the most scientific of all of the nut growing
associations. That is something of a guess, of course, but if they were
put to the test I believe it would come out on top. Anyway put me down
for the very best efforts that I can render to the end of building up
membership and financial support of this association. It seems to me
that with men like Deming, Bixby, Morris, Littlepage, and others whom I
could mention, the scientific and practical ends of this association are
being pretty well taken care of. We meet here in association and it is
very lovely, something of a mutual admiration society; we go away and
are likely to forget until it is about time to get busy with another
meeting. Now it seems to me we ought to be busy all the year doing
something so that when we come to the meeting like this we have
something to report in the way of membership and money. That will make
possible these plans that Dr. Morris suggested. I was unable to hear the
president's address but it seems to me that more attention should be
given to the matter of finances of this association and the membership.
I just want to add a remark or two in regard to Mr. Vollertsen who is
going to read a paper on the filbert. We have found, and we certainly
believe, he and I,--and he knows more than I do because he is on the
ground all the time--I look after the sales end of it,--we have found
that several of our smaller varieties of nuts are, in our estimation,
decidedly superior to some of the larger varieties. While we believe
that the consumer is going to give first thought to size he will be
making a mistake if he passes by some of our smaller varieties which are
splendidly filled, filled to capacity, very rich, and thin-shelled. I do
not want the smaller varieties passed by.
MR. JONES: I think the nurseries would be glad to co-operate in the
getting of new members and it has occurred to me that they might like to
donate trees to new members or plants or something that would attract
them. That might be worked up with the secretary if it would be any
great attraction for getting new members.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that is a very good suggestion.
THE SECRETARY-TREASURER: Mr. McGlennon spoke of the amount of time that
the secretary had to give to the work. I can speak from experience and I
can speak frankly because the secretary and the treasurer are different
persons, although the office of the secretary treasurer has not yet been
officially divided. The treasurer is supposed to have not much to do and
the secretary to get the bulk of the work. While the finances of the
association at the present time are not such that we can recommend the
paying of a salary to the secretary, yet there should be a salary paid
to the secretary sufficient so that he could employ someone to relieve
him of a good portion of the detail which comes on him. I know by
experience what that is. I would like to ask the association to
authorize the treasurer to pay the secretary a salary not exceeding $500
a year. That is what it ought to be or whatever portion of that the
finances will permit for this purpose. In offering that I do not want
the secretary to think that he must begin to spend the money right away,
because it is not in the treasury, but I have a lot of faith that we
will get more money and will be enabled to pay that. So I want to ask
your authority to do it.
MR. OLCOTT: I would like to second that motion and also to endorse what
Mr. McGlennon said, and Mr. Jones, in regard to new members. I think
that is one of the things we need as much as anything right now and that
we can get them if we go after them. I know that our secretaries, both
Mr. Bixby and Dr. Deming, have done a great deal of work and that it
takes a great deal of work to get new members. There are a good many
other things on the schedule for the treasurer and secretary to do
besides that. We have a system of vice-presidents for each state and one
of my recent ideas has been that he might form the center for an
increase of membership in his particular state through co-operation with
the secretary of this association. If we do not keep after this matter
after we adjourn we shall be just about where we are now a year from
now. It is activity that counts. I am sure that if we provide for a
salary for the secretary we will get busy and provide for that salary,
so I make the motion that the treasurer be authorised to pay $500, or
any portion of that amount that the association can afford, to the
secretary.
DR. MORRIS: I second the motion.
The motion was carried unanimously.
THE ACTING SECRETARY: You will notice that, in the question box,
question number 12 is in relation to roadside planting of nut trees.
More people, it seems to me, are interested in the roadside planting of
nut trees than in any other one phase of nut planting. I get many
questions about what is desirable to plant on the roadsides and many
suggestions that the Association particularly interest itself in
encouraging roadside nut planting. Therefore it seems to me that it
would be advisable that this association should appoint a committee
which should consider all the factors concerned in roadside planting of
nut trees, and should draw up a bulletin which can be sent out to
officials and people who make inquiry and to all people who are
interested, giving them exact and specific information on the subject of
road planting in each state, considering each state separately and
suggesting what nut trees had best be planted in that particular state.
MR. JONES: I think Dr. Deming's suggestion is a good one but I do not
like the idea of waiting another year. I think we ought to do that right
now. There is a big opportunity for producing new varieties. For
instance, get each state to take up planting of the very best nuts they
can get and then plant the seedlings on the roadside and we will get new
varieties that will be better than anything we have now. If you plant
common nuts you will get common nuts but if you plant fine nuts while
you will still get a large number of ordinary nuts you will get some
that will be fine and some that will be better than anything you plant,
if you plant enough of them. I think that is the greatest opportunity we
have in roadside planting.
THE ACTING SECRETARY: I think this is the proper course to follow, that
the committee appointed should have power to issue a bulletin without
waiting for the next convention. I would like to see our president at
the head of the committee.
MR. JONES: I would like to see them get the nuts this year. There is a
good crop of nuts this year, black walnuts, hickory and other nuts.
THE ACTING SECRETARY: I move that a committee be appointed by the
president, the number to be determined by the president, and our
president, Mr. Linton, to be the chairman of the committee, to consider
the compilation and issue of a bulletin on roadside planting of nut
trees.
MR. BIXBY: I second the motion.
The motion was carried unanimously.
MR. POMEROY: You will find this argument probably will be used by some
that the trees will be destroyed by automobile parties and children
hammering the nuts off with sticks and stones. I have a few nut trees
planted along the roadside now that are in bearing. They have been in
bearing, some of them, six or eight years and they are within forty feet
of a school house with a large attendance of children. I have had no
trouble at all with the children gathering the nuts or tampering with
the trees. Of course they take a few--I would take them if I were in
their place,--but none of any consequence. Automobile parties passing
along there seldom bother them--although they are worse than the
children to tell the truth. You will hear that argument, that a food
producing tree along the roadside will be injured by travelers.
DR. MORRIS: Mr. Pomeroy's remark relates either to one of two things, to
bad nuts or good children. We will not have that feature throughout the
country at large. It is an important point, however, but if this is to
be committee work it seems to me that perhaps Mr. Pomeroy and others
might offer their testimony at the time there is a committee meeting for
bulletin purposes and we ought not to go on with this discussion at this
time.
THE PRESIDENT: The next thing on the program is an address by Dr.
William A. Taylor, Chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry, on "The Place
of Nut Trees in our Northern Horticulture."
THE PLACE OF NUT TREES IN OUR NORTHERN HORTICULTURE
WM. A. TAYLOR, WASHINGTON, D. C.
We are somewhat inclined in America to consider none but the big things
worth while.
We like to do the big things and the quick ones. To organize billion
dollar corporations; grow billion bushel wheat crops; to have the
swiftest motor boat or auto; to receive the largest income per man, per
year, or per acre. Concentrating our attention on cap sheaves and
superlatives rather generally we very easily lose sight of features less
conspicuous though highly important.
Such an one is the rational development of nut culture in our Northern
States. Since the scouring of our chestnut forests by the Asiatic
chestnut blight has practically eliminated that nut from consideration
for orchard planting in the infected territory until resistant varieties
yielding good crops of nuts of acceptable quality are obtained or
developed, we can hardly say with assurance that we have any nut of
proved adaptability in sight which is worthy of planting on an extensive
scale for its crop alone, on productive agricultural land in the
Northern States.
Along the southern fringe of "the North" as in Delaware, Maryland,
southern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri exception in favor of the
hardy varieties of pecans should probably be noted but in the light of
present knowledge orchard planting of the commercially important almond,
Persian walnut, and pecan must be left to the Pacific Coast and in the
South.
This fact has been so generally recognized that we have been inclined to
give up all thought of attempting nut production in the North merely
because large scale operation is not attractive. There is much ground
for belief that this view is erroneous and that there is need for
localized planting.