Part 16 (2/2)

But back to this problem. I think it is very simple to set out. I think the Varieties Committee--I believe Dr. Crane is chairman--

DR. MacDANIELS: You are chairman.

MR. CHASE: No. It has a job on its hands: first to find out what our members have. Certainly they are spread over the region we are interested in, aren't they? Well, it simply becomes a secretary's job to canva.s.s our members.h.i.+p to find out which varieties we have, so that the Varieties Committee can go to work.

Let's be realistic. We are not going to influence all the experiment stations to do this work. It is not going to be practicable for them.

They probably would very much like to do it, but it's not in the picture, as I see it now. Therefore, we are not going to wait, as our forester would have us wait, until we breed one. Let's get these good ones that we have got and cull them out so Dr. Crane can answer a letter without having a guilty conscience.

DR. CRANE: That's right. Folks, I want to make one comment on Mr.

Chase's remarks--also Mr. Slate's remarks, about tying this work up to the experiment stations. There is one thing that, in my experience, we can't place too much dependence on. Of course, in the Department of Agriculture our main interests that we are likely to contend with are our four major nut industries in the country. That is pecans, Persian walnuts, filberts and almonds. In the case of those, we can get very little help from the experiment stations, with the possible exception of California.

MR. CORSAN: There is lots of truth in that.

DR. CRANE: They haven't got the interest in it. They haven't got the money, they haven't got the support. They depend more on the U. S.

Department of Agriculture. Well, the Department of Agriculture can't carry it. Hence, it comes back to growers. The grower organizations, even in the great state of California, with all their great wealth and abundance, go to the California experiment stations more than to any other experiment stations in the United States. But the commercial growers out there have already set up organizations for the testing of these varieties and for trial plantings. You can't come back to the experiment stations and just as has been pointed out, many of the experiment stations have only one or two or, at most, three different kinds of nuts of their own. They have got to go out just the same as we do ~with the growers~; we co-operate with them. And we have already got a lot of these experimental plantings. There is Sterling Smith with--I have forgotten how many he said--60 walnut varieties, and Mr. Shessler with a hundred, there in Ohio.

I'd like to know from Sterling Smith and Mr. Shessler which are the best five walnut varieties.

MR. KINTZEL: In that section?

DR. CRANE: In that section, that's what I want to know.

MR. CORSAN: That's what we are here for tonight. Let us talk it over.

MR. WEBER: Put the question to him, Dr. Crane, and let him tell you what he thinks to be his best five. Put him on the spot right now.

DR. CRANE: That would be just a waste of time, because that would be his opinion. It's just like what Mr. Wilkinson says, that if he were planting a hundred walnut trees they would be Stablers.

MR. WEBER: In his particular locality.

MR. CORSAN: And he may be quite right in that locality. I am not going to dispute it.

DR. CRANE: But we want to know how some other folks agree with him and study this situation over and find out why Stabler was doing its stuff right there.

MR. CALDWELL: That's what I asked you.

DR. CRANE: And how much evidence did he base his conclusion on? That's what we have got to discover.

MR. CORSAN: I base my conclusion on the experiment station that put out the Redhaven peaches. Dr. George Slate here has made a very big point, and it went to pot. Those words there are what we have got to be careful about, that our inst.i.tution doesn't go to pot. I have started affairs that went with a fury, and when I let go of them, they just went to pot.

Take Michigan State College's Bird Sanctuary, the W. K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary. What is it now? A colorless affair. It's gone to pot, and we want to see that the nut growers don't allow ~their~ inst.i.tutions to go to pot.

DR. CRANE: That's right: You hit the nail on the head, there, but it's up to the nut growers to see that they don't. And how many experiment stations or their actions have been influenced by the Northern Nut Growers a.s.sociation?

MR. CORSAN: I have built upon the experience of J. F. Jones and Neilson and Professor Slate and all of them. Now, here is what I did. I picked out a section of land that floods every spring, about four times the width of this room and has sometimes eight feet of water. Now, n.o.body is going to build houses on that and tear my nut trees down. They are there forever, and it will always be a nut haven, and n.o.body will be able to destroy it. Now I have got to be careful to see that it doesn't go to pot, as Professor Slate said, by selecting some brains to succeed me, to carry on. Is that right, Professor Slate?

PROFESSOR SLATE: (Nods.)

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