for food's--yes, food's sake, for
flavor and health, trees and vegetation as sources for the very
synthetic that are supposed to supplant them; and last but not least,
trees and vegetation for the protection and perpetuation of animal life,
of bird life, and insect life. All these are inseparably bound up with
human life.

Come what may at the hands of a short-sighted human race, no matter what
surface changes may come about in human eating habits, housing styles,
farming or factory practice, still the winds will sweep the earth in
hurricanes where there is nothing to impede them; the waters and ice of
the heavens will still tear apart and level the hills, will gash the
valleys and will carry off the earth and dump it into the sea. Following
this, the sun will burn the unprotected earth into a cinder. Nothing can
change these facts. From the beginning of life upon the earth, trees and
vegetation have been the chief means by which a balance has been
maintained between the antagonistically destructive and creative natures
of the elements.

Do we realize fully, I wonder, how important is the work of this group
and the parent NNGA? The interest of its members is chiefly in "wild"
trees that produce food crops--mainly, but not exclusively, nut crops.
And they are interested not merely in planting and testing names and
known varieties, but in finding and testing the best individuals among
the wild trees, planting selected seed, enjoying the exciting gamble
which is always sealed up in the magic, unknown potentialities of a
hybrid.

As, centuries ago, the Persian walnut was rescued from the forest and
developed into the splendid nut we know today, so the American black
walnut can be rescued; its nut can be improved and developed by
selection and cross-breeding. It is a grand mahogany-like timber tree
which is becoming far too scarce. Each war takes its toll for gun
stocks. Its nuts are the only nuts within my knowledge, not even
excepting our lost American chestnuts, that retain their full
distinctive flavor through cooking. Nothing can replace its flavor in
candy or cake making. The tree is indigenous to America and, in contrast
to the Persian, has only decades, rather than centuries of selective
breeding behind it. No one can tell what even one short century of
intelligent selection may make of this great tree.

We Americans, in fact, have barely started on the Appleseed trail, a
trail which tends toward the development