Part 15 (2/2)

I recall a little survey I made when I was honored by being president of your a.s.sociation several years ago, in which I tried to list all of the work that was in progress at the different national and state experiment stations, and most of those stations were carrying on some work in nut growing. I am sure that if you check that matter now, several years later, you would find that many more are carrying on investigations of that nature. They have expanded as much as their facilities will permit.

For example, just the other day I visited the station at the University of New Hamps.h.i.+re, and there they were growing chestnut trees from seed that had been brought in from Korea. Little trees just two years from the seed were full of burs this year. Whether they are going to fill a place in New Hamps.h.i.+re remains to be seen. They were not as yet attacked by blight, but, of course, the trees were small, and there were no cracks in the bark as yet.

I am sure that most of the station workers know that you at Beltsville are extremely interested in testing new nuts as they become available.

In cooperation with other workers it may be found that this variety is good in ~this~ zone and that variety is good in ~that~ zone. Nurserymen might well include maps of such zones in their catalogs.

DR. ANTHONY: Now that the experiences of the Northern Ohio growers has been brought up and you have mentioned many times your own experience as the Northern Nut Growers, I think the Northern Ohio group, a closely knit group, rather closely geographically related, has worked for almost twenty years, and hasn't gotten too far, and this organization has worked for 41 years and hasn't gotten too far. So that if we want to get anywhere, we must have a more closely knit organization with a better financial backing back of it and a better sense of responsibility back of it.

DR. CRANE: That's right.

DR. ANTHONY: You have mentioned the New Jersey Peach Council. We have been talking to our own Pennsylvania nut growers just as we have been talking to you today, telling them that they had a marvelous opportunity in all of these seedlings that we have been finding around the state. I think we have got them quite stirred up. But now they are considering the possibilities of organizing along the line of New Jersey Peach Council, a nut tester's council, which will be an off-shoot and part of the Pennsylvania Nut Growers a.s.sociation.

Now, why have such a thing? Why have it in Pennsylvania? Why not have it as an organization of the Northern Nut Growers. The problem of varieties actually in its final a.n.a.lysis is a local problem. We have one area in Pennsylvania where on one side of the river it's McIntosh and the other side of the river it's Stayman. There are meteorological differences on each side of the Susquehanna River at Scranton-Wilkes Barre where the varieties s.h.i.+ft. In the northern area we go from the northern hardwood with the beech-birch-sugar maple, into the oaks right in the state, with a third of the state in the northern hardwoods and the rest of the state in the oaks. We have no idea that any one variety of black walnuts or English walnuts or chestnuts will fill our needs any more than we know that any one apple will fill our needs, that one grape or one cherry will fill our needs, even one peach, not even the Elberta.

So it comes down to a regional problem, and for that reason I think that the state should be the logical center for your close knit organization to test your varieties.

There is another reason. I don't believe that any group of growers facing a problem of this magnitude can get very far unless you secure continuity by tying your organizations in some way to your state experiment station. I think you have got to have your continuity by making your tie-up there.

DR. CRANE: That's right.

DR. ANTHONY: I have said a number of times in our own group that one of the great disadvantages of our amateur nut growers in Pennsylvania is that most of them are 70 years old or older. That's fine for them, but it's hard on the industry, because just the time that they should be giving us the most valuable returns, they aren't there. So to secure the continuity you want, you are going to have to tie in your experiments with the experiment station. You are going to have to make a group, you are going to have to incorporate, because you are going to face the problem of propagation. You might have one good tree, and it's of no value for you, and you have got to plant it in more than one spot to know how good it is.

If the Delicious apple or Grimes Golden had appeared in our seedling blocks, we'd have thrown them away. I know we have thrown many things out at Geneva which in other places might have survived. We took a number of those and planted them in Pennsylvania and found them worthy of naming. That means you have got to propagate in more than one place and you have got to propagate in conditions where you know you have got the demand.

And all of that means that you have got to have a tight legal organization. Valuable as the Northern Nut Growers a.s.sociation is, I don't think you are going to get it out of your present organization. I think you have got to find some way to condense your stuff into some tighter organization. In Pennsylvania I think it's going to be a nut tester's council, legally organized, financially responsible, tied up to the experiment station, if we can make it just as the New Jersey council is.

The New Jersey council was a success because they had the best possible tie-up between Morris Plains, 15 or 20 miles on the other side, and a good nursery in between. That's why they made a success.

The New York State Fruit Testing a.s.sociation is a success because they have had continuity. Mr. King has been manager of that a.s.sociation for 25 years, I think, and you have a legal organization doing its own propagation where they know the material is true to name.

Use your vice-presidents all you can, use every committee that you have but you have to have something that's tighter.

DR. CRANE: Thank you. Just one comment that I want to make. You have suggested an awful big camel to get over. Now, we are trying to start.

If we could just get a little start towards the end we could grow into it.

DR. ANTHONY: We have got to start.

MR. O'ROURKE: I am one of those unfortunate ones who is supposed to know everything when an inquiry comes in to the college. I happen to have the privilege of answering the nut inquiries at Michigan State College. The first thing people want to know is, ”what varieties do I plant?” The second is, ”Where do I buy them?” I am very sorry to say I can answer neither one of those questions at the present time satisfactorily to myself, nor to the people of the State of Michigan, and I feel that we do need action, and we need it quick in order that we can select a certain number of varieties that we can conscientiously recommend to the grower, and also a very few varieties to recommend to the nurserymen of the state so that they will propagate them and make them available to prospective customers.

MR. SLATE: I want to support Mr. Anthony's remarks that there are too many old men testing nut tree varieties.

DR. ANTHONY: Not too many, no.

MR. SLATE: And there are too many squirrels involved. If a man gets the idea that he is going to take up the nuts, by the time he acc.u.mulates a collection of nuts, when these come into bearing the squirrels get most of the nuts, and they don't seem to be very much concerned about evaluation. Then the man dies and the collection goes to pot. There must be some continuity, and as far as I can see, that will have to come through state experiment stations.

Now, just how you are going to get the experiment stations started in testing nut tree varieties, I don't really know. Many of the projects at the experiment stations are there because they are catering to the larger industries in the state, and sometimes the projects are there because somebody in an administrative position has an idea which he wishes to see developed.

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