lnut and butternut is the
early loss of leaves in autumn. I have heard others speak about it as an
objection. Among the rapid growing ones, there is no doubt the Japanese
walnuts are tremendously rapid growers, during the first few years. For
screen purposes, the chestnuts and chinquapin certainly would do
remarkably well. We have forgotten the beech altogether, simply because
we haven't been classifying it as a nut tree. But the nurserymen can put
out beech trees grafted from trees that bear fine, valuable nuts, and
give us the beech as a tree of double value.

Mr. Reed: Dr. Deming raised the question as to why the hazel nut was not
given more attention. It occurs to me that we have an analogy in the
pecan situation. The pecan is native up and down the Mississippi River
and out in Texas, and in that district you will find that a great deal
less attention has been paid to development of varieties of the pecan as
an orchard tree than farther east. All through Mississippi, Alabama,
Georgia, and Florida, we find new varieties by the scores. It seems to
be a case of distance lending enchantment.

Professor Lake: Going back, I wanted to ask you, Doctor Morris, if in
your work of reproducing the hazel, you had used the Pacific Coast hazel
for stock.

President Morris: Yes, the Pacific Coast hazel is really the same
species as ours, only it grows thirty or forty feet out there, and I
have seen it nearly thirty feet high up in the Hudson Bay country. In
some of the rich valleys in the far North, both on the Pacific and
Atlantic Coasts, the hazel becomes almost a tree. I have used it for
grafting stock, but I haven't used it for crossing as yet. I have a lot
of hazels ready for pollenizing next spring.

Professor Lake: It seems to me it would be a most excellent thing if
this Association could do something in the way of stimulating the
improvement of varieties of the native hazel. I can't help thinking that
bush is entitled to much more attention than we have given it in the
past.

President Morris: Some work has been done along that line. I devoted the
entire nut-collecting part of one year to studying the hazel. I went
over many thousands of hazels. One day, when I asked a neighbor if I
might go over his grounds, he said, "Yes, but what better hazel do you
want than that one that grows above your north bars?" He said, "We have
known of that for one hundred years about here." He couldn't find it.
Finally it was found, cov