and a
lot of concessions might be made one way or the other with special lots
that are offered for sale.

MR. WHITFORD: What sizes and grades of kernels do you have?

MR. MANGELSDORF: We have the large, medium, small and granules. Granules
are very small pieces. Usually the prices paid for the nuts are not
determined, actually, until the crop starts to move. Everybody has an
idea what the market price will be for the nuts, but nothing is
crystallized or brought to a focus until the first nuts are actually on
the market. Then the nuts sold are examined as to quality, giving some
idea of the future quality of deliveries that might be made in that
section, and then prices can be established. As I say, it's a nutty
business. I haven't grown very many gray hairs yet, but I expect to have
many before I am through. And each new problem that arises in this nut
business, when you reach a solution for it, invariably there are two
other problems that are created, and if you are not wide awake, one of
these problems can be much greater than the one that you just had a
solution for.

MR. DAVIDSON: Do you know anything as to the bearing of black walnuts
this year as compared to previous years?

MR. MANGELSDORF: Mr. Walker and Mr. McDonald are out at the present time
making a crop inspection tour of the various localities, and I have had
no report as to what the condition of the crop will be this year.

MR. WHITFORD: Which grades bring the highest prices?

MR. MANGELSDORF: The large particles of kernel demand a premium over the
smaller sizes. That is one of the discrepancies in the shelling
operation, that the material that costs us the least money to produce
gives the largest returns. When you have small pieces, the operation of
removing the last remaining shells and off-colored particles is much
greater than with the large kernels. One large kernel amounts to
considerable weight and you may have to pick up many small particles to
represent the same weight.

PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We appreciate very much your talk, Mr.
Mangelsdorf.

One thing that interested me was your statement that having large
pieces was an advantage. That question has been argued on the floor of
these conventions a number of times and there have been those who
claimed that the larger pieces were all ground up anyway and that the
varieties from which you can recover large pieces were of no particular
merit commercially.

The next paper is, "Nut Shells-