gh a previous arrangement with our secretary
I had assigned to me an entirely different subject from that on the
printed programme, "The Use of Nuts the Year Around." I have prepared a
paper on the original subject and so I will proceed to deliver it in
accordance with my arrangement with him.

I do, however, want to say first, in connection with the use of nuts the
year around, that we from California are vitally interested in that
problem. I know of no problem that faces us more at the present time
than the one of marketing the product that we grow in competition with
the tremendously increasing imports from abroad, brought in from
countries where labor costs anywhere from twenty to fifty cents a day,
and at the highest a dollar a day for what they call skilled labor, most
of it twenty to fifty cents, and with freight rates across the Atlantic
that amount to less than half of our freight rates, or one-quarter of
them. With the commodity in the hands of speculators who are able in
various ways to make tremendous profits, and giving the public none of
the benefit of these conditions, we find it almost impossible to market
our product at a profit. We must get it into the hands of the consumer
cheaply. We are endeavoring to do it. One of the plans is to encourage
the use of nuts the year around, and the California Almond Growers'
Association, whom I represent, are planning now to shell their own
almonds and put the kernels up in vacuum packages, both tin and glass,
and make it possible for the housewife, instead of going to the candy
stores and buying salted almonds for a dollar to a dollar and a quarter
once or twice a year, to secure her own almonds, blanch them herself and
use them considerably more often because she can get them cheaper. We
believe it is going to be worth while for us to go into the business the
year around. The demand at the present time is for almonds for a brief
period up to the first of January. Thereafter there is no sale until the
following November. Under those conditions you can see that with
increasing crops we are facing difficulties that are almost
insurmountable. Therefore we are changing the form in which we are
marketing part of our crop. I want to say to those people who do
recognize the value of almonds for food that it is going to be possible
for you to secure them in a most desirable form, clean, wholesome and
absolutely fresh, as almonds packed in vacuum. They will be just as
fresh