they are asking you for advice, and they will take
that advice and carry it out.

Now, today it puts a fellow in an awfully hot spot, because as you read
the reports of the Northern Nut Growers' Association you find that there
is absolutely no unanimity of opinion. Every grower is absolutely
certain in his ideas, and they are different from every other grower's.

Well, you can't recommend them all. It's really impossible. Now, this is
one of the things that the Northern Nut Growers have been dealing with
all of these years. This is the forty-first annual meeting. You'd have
thought in 41 years we'd have come up with something, but we haven't
yet. Now, I feel that it's about time that we stop and take stock of our
situation.

I am not going to do the talking tonight, I am just making a few
suggestions and trying to direct the thought a little bit. But one of
the nuts that we have done so much with and have said so much about in
our reports is the black walnut. It's very interesting to read the
reports on varieties of black walnuts and how those who have grown black
walnuts differ in their opinion, regardless. Well, I don't know. When I
get a letter coming in from most anywhere in the country wanting to know
what variety of black walnut to plant, do you know what I tell them?

MR. CALDWELL: Let them find out for themselves.

DR. CRANE: No, sir, they will never find out, not in their lifetime. I
tell them to plant Thomas. Thomas, Thomas Thomas! Why?

MR. KINTZEL: Because we know more about that than any other.

DR. CRANE: That is right. I expect there are four or five times as many
Thomas walnuts propagated and sold by nurserymen in the United States as
all other varieties.

MR. CORSAN: It always has a bigger crop, too.

DR. CRANE: It bears, that's one thing. It may not always fill, but
Thomas is a good variety. But we in the Nut Growers' Association haven't
the nerve to come out and say the Thomas is a good variety. It has its
faults. I know I am going to be wrong in a lot of cases by planting
Thomas.

MR. CORSAN: But don't plant it outside the peach belt.

DR. CRANE: Well, the peach belt is an awful lot of territory. I know I
am going to be wrong, but I know I am going to be safer with Thomas
variety than I would be with some of the others.

Now, I think that it's time, and I think that the biggest thing that the
Northern Nut Growers' Association can do is to give very serious thought
and take action at thi