of the nut industry in the state if for no
more than roadside and home planting. Whether commercial planting will
extend through the north with our black walnuts, our butternuts, our
hickories and our English walnuts, to the extent that it has in the
south with the pecan, is a question which time alone can solve.
We now have new land at the station suitable for the planting of nut
trees. It is going to be the best land that we have on our new farm and
we hope next spring to make a collection planting of varieties. We have
not much money but we can make a start. It is not going to be at a place
that will be set aside and not cared for. It is going to be along the
public road, where we will have to take care of it or we will be
criticised.
Until we solve our problems of selection and propagation we will go
along at a fair rate of increase in regard to our plantings; but we will
not reach the man who has a piece of ground and who says, "I would like
to plant that ground in walnuts, maybe fifteen or twenty trees but I
cannot put thirty dollars into those trees, or twenty dollars when I can
buy apple trees for twenty cents."
Yet the future looks just as bright to me as it did the day I started to
make the English walnut survey, just as bright because we will overcome
these obstacles.
I might close by saying that while we are ready at the college and at
the experiment station to go ahead we are not ready to plunge into any
extensive experiments. It requires money and the money does not come in
such quantities that we can plunge into anything in fact. But we are
ready to begin to build a foundation on which we expect later on to
experiment, and I hope that in ten more years, or in nine more years, if
this association comes back to Pennsylvania, we can invite them to the
experiment station to see what foundations we have laid and what
progress we have made in the experimental work of nut culture.
THE PRESIDENT: Will there be any discussion on the subject so
ably covered by Prof. Fagan? Are there any questions that you desire to
ask the Professor?
THE SECRETARY: I would like to ask Prof. Fagan if he has a good
word to say for the English walnut in Pennsylvania and in other parts of
the country as a profitable tree to plant, from the result of his
inspection of the trees of the state.
PROF. FAGAN: We get a letter probably on an average of once a
week, from some one in the State of Pennsylvania who wants to plant
a
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