87 



Prof. Neilson: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is 

 a real pleasure for me to get back to this convention once more. I 

 tried to come last yeir but owiuo; to certain difficulties I was not able 

 to do so. 



Before I give you my report on nut culture in Canada, I want to 

 tell you some of my troubles. Two or three years ago, when I beg-an 

 to express my interest in nut culture, I thought it would be a good 

 idea to get some nuts from China. I wrote to several missionaries 

 in Northwestern China at about our latitude, and I finally secured five 

 bushels of Persian walnuts and one bushel of Chinese chestnuts. The 

 nuts were a long time on the road and very few were in fit condition to 

 use when they arrived. I stored some of the Persian walnuts in our 

 cellar at the Ontario College. The rest of the nuts I distributed to 

 others. 



The nuts at the college did not fare very well. When I left there I 

 gave directions to the members of the Department to look 

 after them cai'efully. This is how they did it. Someone broke into the 

 cellar where the nuts were stratified in the sand, and ran off with alwut 

 one bushel. Tlie Chinese chestnuts arrived in about the same condi- 

 tion as the Chinese walnuts. Of these 1 managed to save about a ])eck. 

 We divided the nuts into three equal lots. Some we kept at the Guelph 

 Experiment Station, some at Vineland, and some in the Southwestern 

 Station. Of those at Guelph, out of the whole lot, 3.5 nuts germinated, 

 and of these the mice ate all but five. These five were taken outside 

 and carefully placed in a flat; but someone came along and' ran into 

 the flat and smashed those five plants all to pieces. 



In addition to this some of my friends tried to tell me that I was 

 chasing wild geese; that nut trees would not ever be important com- 

 mercially in Canada ; that 99 per cent of the value of the nut tree was 

 for shade anyhow (as if he meant shade for pigs and cows); and that 

 they were not even ornament 1 1. 



Before I read my paper, however, I will say that the work I am 

 now doing is somewhat difl'erent from that I had when I was last here, 

 when I was Prof, of Horticulture. I am now doing extension work for 

 the government. 



