or him to read. It will be inserted
in the proceedings at this point.

JUDGING NUTS

WILLARD G. BIXBY, BALDWIN, NASSAU CO., N. Y.

That there are differences in nuts is apparent to everybody. The
selecting of the best nuts out of a lot of two or three usually presents
no difficulty, and, when the number of nuts to be judged amounts to a
dozen or so, it is generally possible to pick out the best, but, when
one has before him nuts from several hundred trees, the problem becomes
a very different one, and the person who tries to pick out the best from
such a lot soon becomes aware of his own limitations. If, in addition,
he has sufficient respect for consistency to try to be so exact in his
judgment as to be able to go over a large lot of nuts today, we will
say, and several months hence go over the same lot again and render the
same verdict on each one of them, he will doubtless give the matter up
as an impossibility, and yet that is just what is wanted and expected of
those who judge the nuts which are sent in to the annual contests, which
contests have resulted in bringing to the attention of the nut growing
world the nuts of so many fine trees.

The experience of the last two or three years in being one of the judges
who passed on the nuts which were sent in to the contests convinced me,
almost at the start, of the desirability of getting methods where it
would be possible to go over a large lot of nuts now and several months
hence, and render the same verdict on each one of them, but now how to
do it was not at first apparent, and the methods for doing it which will
be outlined are the results of much work, many attempts, and the
discarding of many of the methods tried.

Considering the methods used in judging fruit, animals and fowl has
helped to some extent, but this assistance did not go far. The beginning
of improved methods of judging any of the above, is the establishment of
a score card, as it is called, which is nothing more than an enumeration
of the characteristics and a decision as to the relative value of each
one. Usually the values assigned to each characteristic are such that
when added up the total will be 100 points. Score cards of this
character are in general use.

The first attempt to make a score card for use in judging the nuts to
which the Northern Nut Growers' Association gives its attention, so so
far as I am aware, was that of a committee of the Northern Nut Growers'
Association