to do for the
government was to get and import the hard-shelled almonds of Spain. Most
of you have eaten the Jordan almond and I imagine most of you think it
comes from California, but there are very few Jordans grown in
California and, so far as the investigations go which I have been able
to make in California in co-operation with the candy manufacturers, I
have discovered that the California growers are not growing the best
almond in the world. That the IXL and the Nonpareil and other almonds
are not considered sufficiently good for such men as Lowney to use in
the manufacture of their almond candies was a surprise to me. And the
reason? In the first place the skin of the kernel itself is too thick,
the nut is too brittle and it has not the flavor of the imported nut. I
was shocked the other day to read from cover to cover a bulletin on the
subject of Almonds, and to find that not one word was said of flavor. It
had to be a good cracker; but the marketable qualities did not take into
consideration the question of the _flavor of the kernel, its hardness or
the thickness of skin_.

This picture on the screen was taken in southeastern Spain. These are
the almond crackers of Spain and a poorer lot of people I have never
visited in my life. The little children, not over four years old,
instead of playing as ours play, carry around with them in their hands
little bundles of wheat straw which they braid with their hands as they
play, making sombreros which are shipped to the Argentine. It is a very
poor country where these grow. The soil Is very thin and very dry and
these almond trees grow on the hillsides. It was with an unpleasant
feeling that I took these cuttings from southeastern Spain, and brought
them to America. I got them from the trees that were bearing these
almonds, they were budded in California and we know where the trees are
growing in California from these buds.

This is a view in one of these hillside plantations of southeastern
Spain with two of the almond growers.

This is a view in the plains region near Valencia showing both the hard
shelled almonds and the soft shelled ones. The soft shelled are those
which are easily cracked with the fingers while the hard shelled have to
be broken with a hammer or an instrument. It is these hard shelled
almonds that we have been interested in getting.

I have not kept in touch with this almond situation as I would have if I
had been a specialist on almonds inste