doubt about that. In that same
connection--I would choose nuts for seed purposes of a mean type, for
the reason that nature is all the while establishing a mean. The big
pecan is a freak. If you plant big or small nuts, you don't get big or
small nuts in return. You get both big and little seeking a mean.

Mr. Roper: The large nut will give a better tree. We have tested that
out.

President Morris: Does that work out logically in that way, is it a
comparative matter all the time?

Mr. Roper: We haven't worked that out in the bearing, but in the nuts in
the row, the small nuts did not produce as large trees as the large
nuts. We never tested the mean nuts. We did select some of the very
smallest we had, and planted one of the northern and one of the southern
type. They came up, but the trees amounted to nothing.

President Morris: The idea I meant to convey was that both very small
and very large nuts are freaks, and neither likely to give as good a
tree as mean types. What would you anticipate, Professor Craig?

Professor Craig: I think that would resolve itself on a practical basis
from the practical standpoint. I think the mean or average sized nut
would give you the best results. There is no doubt, as Mr. Roper said,
the very small nut would give you weak seedlings. On the other hand, you
couldn't afford to use the very largest, so that a mean between large
and small would be the natural thing to choose. But we should do nothing
to discourage the planting of the finest specimens, with the possibility
of getting something unusually good. That is certainly the work for
every amateur.

Professor Lake: Does that statement, that you think it doesn't make much
difference about the parent of the nuts for stock, apply to walnuts?

Professor Craig: I haven't had any experience in walnuts.

Mr. Littlepage: I would like to ask Mr. Roper if he knows of any
examples where selection of fine varieties of seed has not resulted in
getting a more productive variety of the plant which he was producing?

Mr. Roper: Only one, and that wasn't in a tree.

President Morris: In regard to coming true to type, I think records have
been made of many thousands of pecans, and I don't know of any instance
where the progeny resembled the parent closely.

Mr. Pomeroy: Maybe someone could explain one of my failures a few years
ago in planting some Persian walnuts. I went to another tree in western
New York, and got a peck or more. They w