mpted to make good. If there remains any doubt
in your minds we will proceed to lose you in the great Green River pecan
woods, and if you are not pretty well stocked with provisions, you may
never get out. I told Professor Close who is making a study of the
pawpaw for the Department of Agriculture, that we also grew pawpaws in
southern Indiana and that I would show him some large trees. So he came
down with us and we went to Boonville and got in Senator Hemenway's
automobile and I introduced him to a pawpaw tree six feet and a half in
circumference at the ground, five foot in circumference three feet from
the ground. So the chair takes some pleasure in having been able to
show the things that were promised. Let us hear from Mr. Riehl.
MR. RIEHL: I think you folks are very unfair to me. You have said
everything I wanted to say before you called on me and I really don't
know what else I can say. I had in mind what Professor Smith has been
saying to me, and what some of you people have already said, that it is
time for you people here to wake up. You don't know what you have got.
You are like people in many other sections of the country, they don't
appreciate what they have at their very doorways. If I were a young man,
I would come here and plant pecan and walnut trees, but I am too old now
to make such changes. In a few years you may remember what I have said.
The walnuts are as profitable as anything else, and much more so than
any farm crop you can grow. Nothing will produce as much value and with
as little trouble as nut trees. I am convinced of that.
PROFESSOR SMITH: If they would follow your suggestions they would soon
have another Garden of Eden.
THE PRESIDENT: Professor Smith has reminded us that the crops in the
Garden of Eden were purely tree crops, and they grew without effort. But
after the fall Adam and Eve had to go out and cultivate the soil and
raise corn. Probably in that garden they had pecans and walnuts. I
believe that is his theory and it may be good.
PROFESSOR SMITH: O, beg your pardon, that is in the book of Genesis. The
text describes nothing whatever except trees, and then Adam fell and had
to dig in the ground and make his bread by the sweat of his face.
MR. POTTER: Is the tree of knowledge the pecan tree?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't know. Can any one else say?
PROFESSOR SMITH: My remarks on the Garden of Eden were brought out by
what our President said, but I have published others that a
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