me or other have gathered black walnuts, have hulled
them. You know those pretty stained hands you have, and I can remember
back in those days when I was a kid when I used to get those hands of
mine just so brown and black from the hulling of black walnuts that my
mother would almost want to turn me over her knee and spank me. But when
wintertime came I always had a bunch of black walnuts that we could sit
down and crack and put in those cookies or in that fudge.

I have talked to a good many of you people here, and I have a prepared
speech, but I am going to ramble a little bit and I am going to ask you
to ask me questions, because I found out that I don't know so many
things, or the speech that I was going to make to you might not be as
interesting as your asking me questions. I do want to say a few things,
and I will go through quickly.

The first is the marketing of black walnuts in the shell. We find in the
marketing of any product that there is a tremendous amount of waste due
to poor sacking, due to a little dishonesty on the part of the people
who are selling merchandise. You know, if there is a brick in a bag, the
brick weighs a pound, that costs the man who buys the black walnuts
money. In other words, out of that pound of brick he intended to get a
small quantity of meats to sell, so his cost immediately goes up. You'd
be surprised at how many bricks and how much iron there is in black
walnuts and pecans! It's universal throughout the United States. There
is a lot of chiseling that goes on. Your bags should be good. Black
walnuts must be held for some time before they are processed, and one
black walnut bag used one year can't be used another. If you can get by
with one year's use of a bag to hold a hundred pounds, or whatever is
put in it, of black walnuts, you are very fortunate. Usually they break
out before the year is over, and that causes waste. So start out with a
decent bag.

I made a little note here to talk to you about California black walnuts.
The standard throughout the United States to people who actually buy
black walnut kernels is what we call in the brokerage field Eastern
black walnuts. That means Kentucky and Tennessee. Those are Eastern
blacks, they are the blacks with the flavor, the blacks that stand up.
From my home state they have Missouri blacks, but the quality isn't
there. The flavor doesn't hold up. But you people down here grow the
finest blacks in the world. California, yes, Ca