ir homes. The workers received 10c per pound for cracking and picking
out the kernels and in addition retained the shells for fuel. Forty-five
thousand pounds of nuts were used in the experiment for which a uniform
price of $1 per hundred weight was paid.

The more efficient and conscientious workers produced as high as 15% of
kernels per unit of whole nuts, which was slightly better than the
production by factory methods. The general average, however, was around
12-1/2%, or about the same for both methods. As to quality of product
there was no appreciable difference. It is necessary to exercise greater
care in the selection of workers where the work is done in homes without
supervision than in the factory. By actual experience it was found that
some workers would produce less than half the percentage made by the
more efficient workers. Such workers were dropped.

Where relatively small quantities of nuts are to be shelled there is
little to be chosen between the home-industry method and such factory
method as was used by me. The cost of delivering the nuts to the homes
may be roughly set over against the cost of operating a factory. Based
on the hours of work required to produce a given quantity of kernels,
the factory method is more efficient. On the other hand, the home worker
will work for a smaller wage per hour. Where large quantities of nuts
are available, commercial cracking by machine methods will be
increasingly used in the future, especially if economic conditions so
far improve that people will no longer work for starvation wages. Point
is given to this observation by the fact that local buyers paid from 8
to 15c for country-produced kernels last season, while my bare cost,
without overhead or profit, was 20c per pound.

* * * * *

The most notable advance that has come to my attention during the past
year in the way of commercial production of black walnut kernels is that
contributed by Mr. C. E. Werner, President of the Forest Park Nut
Company, of Ottawa, Kansas. Mr. Werner, who is 84 years of age and a
veteran inventor with several notable inventions to his credit, has
designed and built a machine that seems to mark a new era in black
walnut kernel production. This machine, which is mounted on a truck, is
not only used for the local operations of the company, but is moved from
place to place in the performance of custom work, after the manner of a
grain threshing outfit.