At the meetings of the society he went alphabetically over
the variety lists of fruits and called for reports on each one from
growers all over the country. This practice was kept up for years and
the resulting data were collated and compiled in the society's reports.
In this systematic way the varietal adaptations of the different classes
of fruits were accurately worked out for all parts of the country. A
similar systematic roll call of classes and varieties of nuts grown by
the members of this association would be of immense value to intending
planters of nut trees.

In northern nut-growing, however, it may be questioned if we are yet
arrived at the Patrick Barry stage. What we need is pioneer planters who
have the courage to plant nut trees and take a chance against failure
and not wait for others to blaze the trail. It needs men of vision and
courage to plant the unknown and look with hope and optimism to the
future. So many are deterred from planting by the fact that nut trees
are tardy in coming into bearing and uncertain of results. In these
stirring times we want men of nerve in the orchard as well as in the
trenches. We need tree planters like Prof. Corsan who, at a former
meeting of this association when joked about planting hickories, replied
that he wasn't nervous and could watch a hickory tree grow. It takes
nerve to be an innovator and to plant some radically different crop from
what your conservative neighbors all about you are planting.

The Georgia cotton planters wagged their heads and tapped their
foreheads when Col. Stuart and Major Bacon turned good cotton land into
pecan groves. But the thousands of acres of commercial pecan orchards
now surrounding these original plantings showed that these pioneer pecan
planters were not lunatics or impractical dreamers, but courageous men
of vision, thirty years ahead of their time.

Nut tree planting is not all waiting. It will give the busy man some
surprises as I have reason to know from my own limited experience. Ten
years ago when I planted my first experimental orchard I set about
preparing several other lines of quick maturing experimental work, for I
did not expect those trees would have any thing to report for a decade
or so. You can imagine how surprised and delighted I was when on the
third year there was a sprinkling of nuts, enough to be able to identify
the most precocious varieties. The surprise increased to wonder the next
year when there was