SIDENT: In writing you I did not understand the size of the tree.
On some trees I have been using a tablespoonful, about that, and I was
afraid I got too much.

MR. POTTER: Evidently I got too much.

THE PRESIDENT: Evidently we got mixed up on the quantity. I know I never
used more than two tablespoonfuls at any time and I should imagine two
pounds would be a big overdose. I remember talking to Dr. Smith about
that time about some old apple trees around which you can use five or
six pounds of nitrate of soda and I suppose that is the way we got mixed
up. I must have had that in mind as I did not intend to advise that
amount for young nut trees.

MR. POMEROY: How long a season should the tree keep growing? From early
spring to late in the fall? My experience is they will stop about the
first of August, and let the wood ripen up and harden for the cold
weather. Some might keep the trees growing longer, but you will hurt the
trees I think.

THE PRESIDENT: We have not heard from Mr. Reed yet.

MR. C. A. REED: I am glad the discussion has proceeded as it has since
it has given me time to reconnoitre. I hardly know what to say on this
subject that Professor Smith has brought up. I guess he knows what he is
talking about so far as his experiments have taught him. The department
does not like to discourage a good thing nor to encourage a thing that
is too risky. There is one thing quite sure and that is that so long as
nut trees are selling for from one dollar to two dollars apiece, very
few people are going to buy them and plant many of them on these
hillsides and experiment with them. People cannot afford to do that. We
have found, taking the country over, that nut trees thrive best when
they are given treatment; that is they must be given cultivation and
fertilization; be given some degree of attention the same as an apple or
peach orchard. Colonel Sober, however, will show you quite a different
thing. He will show you chestnut trees that are not cultivated at all,
so there is a staggering blow to my argument, and yet Colonel Sober gets
something like three and a half bushels to the tree. You don't fertilize
those trees, do you, Colonel Sober?

COLONEL SOBER: No sir, not at all. Haven't yet.

MR. REED: So there is an argument that silences me and still it is true
that we can't safely plant hickories and pecans without some degree of
cultivation. I don't think Professor Smith has planted any on these
hills.

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