y and value of the nuts are, however, the most important
initial consideration in selecting a variety on its merit and there
should be some objective test adopted to aid in evaluating nut samples.

During the many years that the Northern Nut Growers Association has been
operating more than a hundred and fifty varieties of black walnuts have
been named. Yet at the present time we are not certain which are the
better varieties except in a very general way. There is no widely
accepted judging schedule being used as is evident in the tables
published by Seward Berhow in his paper in the 1945 Proceedings (2). In
these tables scores are given but these come from several sources and
are not comparable and hence are of little value in making comparisons.

There have been many schedules for judging black walnuts presented in
the past. One of the first was proposed by the late Willard G. Bixby (3,
4). This was complicated and never came into general use although the
testing done by Mr. Bixby was a valuable contribution to our knowledge
of varieties. The late N. F. Drake tested many varieties through the
years according to a schedule of his own devising (5, 6). Professor
Drake's schedule was related to his concept of a perfect walnut and the
various values were related to this on a percentage basis. This schedule
never had wider acceptance, chiefly because it was too complicated and
required too much figuring.

Mr. C. A. Reed has probably tested more varieties of nuts and is more
familiar with varieties than any other person but he does not have a
definite scoring schedule. Kline and Chase (7) summarized results of the
testing work that had been done and Kline (8) compared varieties
according to a system which he devised in which they were rated in terms
of return per hour of labor spent in cracking and extracting the
kernels. Mr. C. C. Lounsberry has proposed a method of scoring which was
related to kernel cavity measurement (9).

In 1935, a Committee on Varieties and Standards endeavored to formulate
a working schedule that would be adopted as official. This committee set
up a score that represented the best thinking of the group at that time
(1). Twenty-five nut samples were used. The score was the sum of the
weight of an individual nut in grams plus twice the per cent kernel of
the weight of the nuts recovered in the first crack plus the total
percentage of kernel plus 1/10 of a point for each quarter kernel
recovered. Pena