s to numerous questions which have been made in
connection with these developing industries. I believe that we have
contributed very materially to the knowledge of varieties, particularly
as regards their adaptation to different geographic locations. We have
also assisted the industries to solve some of their problems of
cultivation, particularly of propagation, and also the problems growing
out of the maintenance of soil fertility. With a new crop, in a new
environment, it is always a problem to know how to manage the soil, and
this is one of the leading lines of activity in the field, at the
present time. In the Bureau of Plant Industry, two offices, that of
Horticulture and Pomology and that of Soil Fertility, are co-operating
in the solution of the soil fertility problems in the pecan regions.

Of course, as the industry developed and became established, the natural
enemies of the pecan and of the other nut trees asserted themselves, as
a result of which there have been set up investigations in the Bureau of
Plant Industry to study the life histories of the various fungi that
attack pecans; and outside of the Bureau of Plant Industry, the Bureau
of Entomology has been devoting time to the study of the control of
insect enemies. So that, at the present, the department is so organized
that three or four important lines of attack are being made upon
problems of these industries. Thus, while at the beginning of the Bureau
of Plant Industry, in 1901, there was no single, individual person
devoting his time and attention to the problems of nut culture, at
present there are quite a group of individuals giving their whole time.
I feel we are making progress in the work, and while we may be lagging
very much behind what we should like to do, we are assisting as best we
can, and are at least keeping in sight of the industry, as it goes
forward.

I will not try to go into details about the work we are carrying on,
because it is better to tell of what we have accomplished than to tell
what we hope to do. We have a man on the Pacific Coast giving his whole
time and attention to the study of breeding and of the cultural problems
of almonds. Besides this, we have two men giving all of their time to
pecans; and during the last year, there has been established near
Albany, Georgia, a station devoted to the cultural problems of pecans.
One gentleman is continuously on the ground with the work, and two
others devote more or less of t