ggestion that we
cannot count on crop success or crop failure mathematically--now, there
are fortunes to be made from the proper management of good nut orchards.
We know of orchards where very large incomes are at present being made,
and I am very glad that the sense and sentiment of this meeting is
against quotation of that feature. I have not heard here one word in
quotation of orchards which bring incomes of $10,000 a year or more from
various kinds of nuts, and we know there are many such orchards. It is
the failures upon which we should concentrate our attentions right now,
and the reason for failure is not that nut growing is not going to make
progress but that we cannot count on our nuts from a mathematical basis.
One of my friends, an old Frenchman, became very enthusiastic about
raising poultry. He sent out requests for circulars to every poultry
fancier who published circulars, and I will wager that he got 50 per
cent of answers to his requests for circulars about fancy poultry. He
began to raise chickens, and my father-in-law met him on the street one
day and asked how he was getting on with his pullets that were going to
lay so many eggs. "Oh," he said, "Ze trouble is with ze pullet; she no
understand mathematique like ze fancier. If I have one pullet, she lay
one egg every day; if I have two pullet, _perhaps_ she lay two egg every
day, and if I have three pullet, she _nevaire_ lay three egg every day."
(Laughter.) Now I think that the remaining time this morning we had
better devote to the executive session, then we had better meet at two
o'clock for the election of our committee. The meeting then is at
present adjourned, with the exception of those who will take part in the
executive session, and we will meet again at two P. M. There is one
point I wanted to make in connection with Col. Van Duzee's remarks that
a certain number of really honest men have allowed their names to be
used in connection with promotion propositions. Men who are quite
skillful at learning the use of names, have gotten men of good
intentions and kindly interest, I know, to lend their names as even
officials of nut promotion companies. Besides that, a good deal of
garbled literature of recommendation has gone out in their circulars. I
have had a number of circulars sent to me quoting abstract remarks that
I had made relative to nut culture in general, and this has been applied
concretely in circulars; the context did not go with it. I