the two largest shellers in the
country present at these meetings, but was unable to get them here. In
this area the commercial walnut cracking industry is related directly to
the type of machinery necessary to recover the kernels. For example, the
two or three cracking plants in Nashville handle an estimated ten
million pounds of nuts each year and turn out roughly 1.2 million pounds
of kernels. These kernels go directly to confectionary syrup and ice
cream plants. Therefore, they are not interested in size of pieces. In
fact, if they are too large, the commercial users have to chop them up.
So what we are doing here, ladies and gentlemen, is confusing what we
want to do in the way of judging nuts, it appears to me. There is little
reason to assume that the Thomas, if they could get 10 million pounds of
Thomas, would be more valuable to the commercial crackers. But that
doesn't necessarily interfere with our judging system that we are trying
to design to tell which nut is the best to grow.

I specifically asked these buyers of millions of pounds of nuts: "If I
came in with some Thomas nuts would I get some more money for them?"
Their reply was, "No, sir. We pay a flat rate per hundred pounds of
nuts. We know that some of them are going to be excellent; we know some
of them are going to be poor, but we intend to get from 12 to 15 per
cent kernel recovery out of them."

In 1940 we brought quantities of improved varieties to the cracking
plant in Knoxville and ran them through Mr. Smalley's machine. He was
amazed. He didn't believe it; didn't believe his eyes. They came out in
large pieces. But under present conditions they'd be chopped up. None of
these kernels moving out of Nashville vicinity go to retail trade,
except a few that go to confectionary stores in 25-pound boxes and are
sold a pound at a time for cooking purposes, not for eating out of the
hand.

People like Mr. Korn and Mr. Hirschi, who are interested in selling
kernels at a much higher price than the commercial crackers, have to
have large pieces, attractive kernels, properly cared for, properly
colored, and of mild flavor. Is it this group we are trying to assist by
this judging system or the commercial cracker?

The number of acres planted with Thomas sufficient to yield enough nuts
to operate one of these machines would be tremendous. There are several
examples of where the machine has been purchased to be used on Thomas
but hasn't been used. It has