20 



selves, we ma}' be radical, conservative or anything we please. With 

 the public we must be educative but conservative. The public has 

 reason to expect from us temperate statements not likely to mislead. 

 We must state the truth as closely as we can. As individuals we 

 must take the risks ourselves and when we have attained success we 

 can lead all Missouri where it can see wealth spouting and say, "Look 

 at this." Then Missouri will do the rest. 



For commercial ends nut growing in the northeastern United 

 States is now what it has always been in the past, dependence on our 

 natural resources. But as an art nut culture shows progress. We now 

 know how to grow and graft nut trees. We have rescued a number 

 of fine varieties from extinction. W'c have interested some of the 

 agricultural institutions. W^e have planted nurseries and experimental 

 orchards and we are getting some nuts. Let us consider the different 

 nuts separately. But be it understood that anything that I may now 

 say is subject to change witliout notice before the close of the con- 

 vention. 



The Hickories 



Out of the past of the shagbark hickory we have brought to light 

 a number of promising varieties, we have used them to topwork sev- 

 eral hundred native trees in different localities, and we have been 

 getting a few handfuls of nuts from these for several years. We 

 know that we may continue to topwork the shagbark hickory with 

 pleasing and profitable results. This method may even be capable 

 of a limited commercial extension. Nursery trees of the shagbark are 

 not obtainable in commercial quantities. This is because of the ex- 

 pense of producing them, the want of success in transplanting them, 

 and the resulting limited demand. But I think that the experiments 

 of Mr. Bixby and others with different species of hickory as stocks 

 for the shagbark are soon going to solve the first difficulty and give 

 us a fairly rapid and not too expensive method of producing nursery 

 stock in commercial quantities. As for the difficulty in transplanting, 

 if Mr. Bixby can move twenty-four large Hales hickories from Florida 

 to Long Island with the loss of a single tree, the solution of this 

 problem resolves itself simply into finding out how Mr. Bixby did it. 



We still know very little about the tree qualities of the different 



