pecan and that likewise are productive and that can be produced at a low
cost. As a matter of fact, in all of your meetings up to the present
time the finding, testing, and the evaluating of chance seedlings that
appear to be of promise has constituted not only an essential but one of
the larger features to claim attention. Furthermore, I believe it will
continue to claim attention for many years to come.

Practically all of your present materials, from the Fairbanks hickory to
the Thomas or Stabler walnut, have just happened--that is, occurred as
chance seedlings. They have been found and recognized as something a
little better than the general run. Someone has brought them to the
attention of the public, your Association placed approval on them, and
they have been propagated and finally become more or less disseminated.

I presume that by a more thorough combing of the territory more good
material will be found and brought to the front. However, after you do a
certain amount of combing, you eventually exhaust the resources.
Nevertheless, when that time comes in a matter of this kind, a good deal
more can be done. If the plum or grape grower had stopped when he had
scouted all of the territory where vines are native and had introduced
into cultivation the best of the chance seedlings that nature had given
us, we wouldn't have the grapes or plums or other fruits that we have
today.

At this point I wish to make a suggestion as to one thing that this
association, as an association, and perhaps some of its members as
individuals, can give some attention to as a part of your program in the
years to come. It is the job of breeding superior varieties of nuts,
because much improvement is called for in walnuts, hickories, and the
other kinds before they are all that you or the consuming public wants
of them. The situation is essentially the same with nuts as with other
fruit and ornamental plants. We have some pretty good peaches, but ten
years from now the producers in Michigan will be growing very few of the
varieties that they are growing today, and I dare say that twenty-five
years from now they will be growing hardly any of them. We have some
very attractive delphiniums and dahlias, but in 1950 few of today's
favorites will be in cultivation. They will be superseded by new and
superior varieties. In 1950, or 1975, we should be growing nut varieties
that are far superior to what is available at the present time.

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