“ Of course, we got a lot of self-pruning and a lot of competition, as we would in forests by the trees growing up and competing with each other and reaching for height and light. Some of them died and some were so badly suppressed that they failed to make any growth at all. But there is one tree that we still have in that orchard that we are proud of, not from the standpoint of nut production, nor does it produce a very good nut as far as the human taste is concerned. But it has made a single stick that far surpasses any other tree we have in the orchard. ”

“ We find in the marketing of any product that there is a tremendous amount of waste due to poor sacking, due to a little dishonesty on the part of the people who are selling merchandise. You know, if there is a brick in a bag, the brick weighs a pound, that costs the man who buys the black walnuts money. In other words, out of that pound of brick he intended to get a small quantity of meats to sell, so his cost immediately goes up. You'd be surprised at how many bricks and how much iron there is in black walnuts and pecans! It's universal throughout the United States. ”

“ From the experimental standpoint I have been very much interested in the timber type of tree, hoping that our native chestnut trees, at least one out of the billions, maybe would prove to be resistant. However, watching these growths come up from time to time and attain an age sufficient to produce nuts and then have my hopes blighted by going back the next year and finding that the tree was blighted has become rather discouraging. I hope that some of you people will find just such a tree, one that will bear an excellent nut and at the same time produce excellent timber. ”

“ It is very seldom that one hears a nut grower express the opinion that a certain tree is carrying too many nuts for the crop to attain proper size and fill well, yet this is very often the case. Furthermore, the production of a large crop of poorly filled nuts one year is almost certain to result in a light crop or none at all the following year. There is a very close inverse relation between the size of the crop produced and the degree to which the nuts are filled at harvest, namely, the larger the crop the less the nuts will be filled. ”

“ We don't like the Stuart because of its low quality. We don't like the Stuart because it doesn't come into production until it reaches a considerable age. We just simply will not have the Mahan, because it doesn't fill. We do not like the Success because it has a tendency to over-bear every other year and does not fill. We cannot use the Squirrel's Delight which for ten years or so we had at the top of our list, because a special strain of scab fungus came in and completely wiped them out, and so on throughout the list of varieties that we have. ”

“ You are going to have to grow your honeylocust on the outside, harvest the pods and feed them just like you would corn, or you are going to have to plant your honeylocust on a barren hillside someplace that doesn't grow anything else—and I think honeylocust will grow with a little fertilizer on about the poorest soil you have, the most eroded soil you have, with a little care—then pasture it after your trees are large enough so that the cow won't eat the limbs. There is something about the tree itself that a cow loves. They will chew the bark and chew the limbs right down to the main trunk. ”

“ It was while cracking these nuts with a hammer that the thought came to me: Why should there not be a faster and better way to crack nuts? Later I happened to see a walnut cracker made by a blacksmith which did a very good job of cracking, but was entirely too slow for me.
Being mechanically inclined, I have always entertained a desire to invent something worth while. I set out to perfect a cracker that would be fool-proof, easy to work, fast, simple, and strong enough to last a lifetime. ”

“ It's been my observation that the cracking machines do a remarkably good job with the ordinary run of seedling nuts. Kenneth Dick gets the kernels out in rather large pieces, and from what we saw up at Mullins' place he gets the same thing. He sifts out the larger pieces and gets a better price for them. So the preference is for the larger pieces. It's like buying hamburger; you prefer your hamburger ground up out of larger pieces rather than odds and ends that the butcher has around the shop and grinds it up and hands it to you. ”

“ All are trees and it is better to plant a poor kind of tree than not to plant anything, particularly if it is a nut tree. Whatever prompts a man to plant a tree is worth while.
Hybrid chestnuts bred by crossing Chinese chestnuts of unknown performance record as to habit of bearing, size or flavor of nut, shape of tree, resistance to blight, or spring freezes, and other characteristics which combine to make good nuts, with the inferior and largely inedible Japanese chestnuts, are unlikely to do the damage to the industry that is sometimes predicted. ”

“ Injury to the leaves resulting from attacks by diseases and insects is one of the most common and important causes of poorly filled nuts. Every species and variety of tree nut suffers from at least one disease or insect pest that damages the leaves and hence limits or curtails the amount of elaborated food materials they can make. In most cases the fungi or bacteria causing foliage diseases infect the leaves in early spring at the time they are unfolding and growing in size, although the infection may not be noticeable until later. ”

“ The forest trees, of which there seem to be thousands on my property, very seldom exceed a diameter of six inches, yet they appear to be very old trees. Occasionally we find one that reaches the diameter of a foot or more, and generally it is one that is located where it has plenty of space to grow, as in open pasture. The tree is rather easy to graft to many varieties of hickories. No doubt if it were grown in large numbers, in the proper soil, the time for producing seedling stock ready for nursery propagation could be cut down. ”

“ I am sure that as far as the production of good strains of blight-resistant chestnut, better strains of Chinese, and so on, that there are people in West Virginia who are more capable of telling you what has been done from a private viewpoint than anyone with the Conservation Commission, but we are interested in learning about it and producing it in large numbers for a game food, and, of course, if we are interested in distributing from our nursery over the state for that purpose, we are interested in producing better strains of blight-resisting chestnut as we go. ”

“ Wanton destruction of God-given treasure and beauty is a sin and a shame. Thanks to the men of vision and foresight of the U.S.D.A., state agricultural colleges, and our own fraternity of nut tree lovers, this slaughter is coming to a halt at last. Our fellow citizens are being awakened to the real value of their woodlands. Much reforestation of these steep barren wastes is already under way.
We, of THE NORTHERN NUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION, INC., can look back to many mistakes we have made in the selection of varieties for our respective climates and soils. ”

“ In conclusion, I wish to state that selected varieties of filbert nuts can be grown in the Northeast. Hybrids between the American and European filbert are good growers and producers, although I find that the flavor of the nut isn't as good as that of the pure avellana. I would advise the planting of a dozen bushes by each of a great number of persons further to prove the possibilities of growing this specific nut in the New England area, also to promote the idea of growing both feed and food on trees and bushes. ”

“ Usually no fertilizer is used at the time of planting, although mixing about a handful of bone meal with the soil around the roots has given a higher percentage of living trees and has increased growth the first year. A shallow basin around the tree to facilitate watering when necessary during the first growing season, or the application of a mulch around the tree, or both, will be helpful in obtaining a high percentage of living trees and good growth. Adding water at the time of planting is good insurance that the soil will be well settled around the roots. ”

“ The first few crops produced by a tree usually consist of nuts large in size for the variety; and then, as the tree attains age, nuts become smaller in size. Young trees make longer and thicker shoot growth than do older trees. There is, then, under normal conditions, a direct relationship between the growth made by a tree and the size that the nuts attain. The more vigorous trees not only produce larger nuts than those produced by less vigorous trees, but the hulls and shells of such nuts are thicker and constitute a higher total percentage of the total weight of the fruit. ”

“ I suppose there is not a single member of this body who does not have the feeling that the Northern Nut Growers Association is "different," unique, and, very special: Here are all kinds: scientists and rule-of-thumb planters, experienced professionals and inexperienced amateurs, conservationists and hobbyists, all bent on one objective—to enlighten Americans and themselves on the values and opportunities that lie in the study and practice of planting forest trees which bear crops—specifically, nuts. ”

“ We have a great many men in the state who wish to plant land to pecans, and, of course, in cases like that the varieties which are available are always selected for planting, and nursery trees, of course, are utilized. The latest phase of that type of development is the planting of apple trees for filler trees with the expectation that the apple trees will be removed after 15 or 20 years, thus leaving the pecan trees at a large size to fully occupy the ground, and in the meantime the apple trees, of course, have produced a profitable crop. ”

“ An owner of a valuable planting of grafted trees in a region where the disease is present should watch his trees for the first indication of trouble. The planting will be safer, if there are no nearby native trees; and if native trees are growing nearby and cannot be removed, they should be given a general inspection. Prompt removal and burning of any infected trees found is advisable. The fact that usually fungus spore production does not take place until after the tree has been dead for a while makes the prospect for control better than with most diseases. ”

“ In handling chestnuts that you people handle maybe in small or large quantities where all of your time can be devoted to that particular thing, you probably have a lot of things that you do that we don't have time to do because at the nursery in West Virginia we are interested primarily in producing conifers and other forest trees for the reforestation of abandoned land. So in handling this Chinese chestnut as a game food we are working on a sideline. We have to pick it up as fast as we can do the job and do as much as we can and learn about as much as we can. ”

“ If you take the raw nuts three days cured rapidly where the air can circulate over and under, the quality is excellent raw, and I have those nuts cured for three days in cellophane bags on cold storage that can be sold throughout the year. Those nuts must be heated enough to stop the deterioration, whatever it is. It may be a physiological condition, I am not sure, it may be a vitamin reaction, I am not sure, but when the nut dries too fast it turns white on the inside, gets hard, loses its flavor, and it is no good. ”

“ Chairman and members of the Nut Growers Association: As President Davidson announced, I am an agricultural agent. About twelve years ago I thought it would be good to have a hobby, and since I was born and reared in the nursery world propagating fruit trees and ornamentals, and due to the fact that John Hershey came by one day and talked to me about the tree crops in the Tennessee Valley, it struck me just right, and I have made that my hobby.
You know, every man who has a job gets fed up on his job and needs to get out and play with himself, or something else, to forget his troubles. ”

“ Forest crops, not merely nuts, are the logical outgrowth in interest that such an organization as ours stimulates. Dr. Zimmerman's work with papaws is a case in point. Mr. Wilkinson's work with the Lamb curly walnut is another. The persimmon, the papaw, the mulberry, the haws, the juneberries—you are likely to find them all, sooner or later, among the nut trees of our members. You will hear presently about a wood from one of our nut trees that is so valuable, and so possible to grow, that we may presently be planting for extraordinarily beautiful and valuable timber. ”

“ It has recently been found that when the pistillate flowers of a certain variety are cross-pollinated with a pollen from another definite variety the embryo or nut kernel is larger and better filled. This is a manifestation of hybrid vigor, or heterosis. Heterosis has been found in the chestnut and in the pecan. It likely will be found in other nut species. Some day the principles of selected and controlled parentage underlying hybrid vigor may be utilized in producing superior nuts, as these principals are now so widely used in producing hybrid seed corn. ”