57 



steaks, and when a great many of their guests will order these steaks 

 in place of the beef steaks that they are ordering now. 



I want to say that we are glad to have your distinguished presi- 

 dent as a fellow pecan nut. He is largely interested in Georgia and 

 we see his smiling face frequently in that section of the world. We 

 are interested to see him succeed there and I am sure the members 

 of this association are all interested and pleased to see what he has 

 accomplished in developing the filbert right here in the shade of 

 Rochester. (Applause.) 



The President: Mr. Patterson, I thank you. I feel that I 

 cannot let this opportunity pass to correct an impression that might 

 have gotten over from one remark of Mr. Patterson's about the fil- 

 bert nurseries being the result of my efforts. That is a long way 

 from being so. In every successful operation I believe the master 

 hand can be traced. In this operation of ours here the master hand 

 has been that of my esteemed friend of long standing and very close 

 cooperation covering a period of over a decade, Mr. Conrad VoUert- 

 sen. Mr. Vollertsen is entitled to the full credit for the success of 

 our industry. I feel that I am justified in claiming for myself in 

 connection with it the credit for the enterprise. Each of us in life 

 has our particular place to fill. Mr. Vollertsen brought to me the 

 idea of this filbert operation some years ago, over a decade, espe- 

 cially the idea of propagating the filbert from the layer instead of 

 from the bud or graft, it being my belief up to that time that it could 

 be propagated only by budding and grafting. He had worked in the 

 nurseries in Germany as a young man and had told me of his ex- 

 periences. So I sent to Germany and got five plants of twenty 

 varieties, leaving to the nurseries from which I purchased them the 

 selection of the varieties. I think the plants were six to twelve inches 

 in size. From these, under the ability and knowledge of my friend, 

 Conrad Vollertsen, has been developed what you saw this afternoon. 

 I am mighty proud of it and so is he because he and I alone know 

 what we have had to buck these last ten or eleven years. Speaking 

 frankly, it has been pretty hard going sometimes, but personally I 

 feel tonight, after what has been said to me by many of our members 

 at our place this afternoon, especially the praise of our faculty to 

 which I referred in my paper, that we have accomplished something 

 really worth while, and it is my ambition and Mr. Vollertsen's, too, I 

 know, to prove that we have a really worthwhile thing for the people. 

 The pecan is the highest in food value of any nut known to the 

 world today. The filbert is the second highest in food value and I 

 believe it is a nut adapted for a wider range of soils and climates in 

 the North than any other nut. I know this may sound a little like 

 blowing my own horn, but I want you to understand that I am 

 chuck full of filbert as well as pecan. I am certainly mighty happy 

 for my pecan association in southwest Georgia, and I am feeling 

 pretty happy tonight in connection with the filbert also. 



