44 



NORTHERN NUTS— VARIETIES 



Willard G. Bixhy, Baldwin, N. Y. 



In opening this subject I cannot resist saying a word about the 

 purpose for which we are seeking fine varieties of nuts, i. e., that of 

 getting orchards of them planted and bearing; and giving a few gen- 

 eral observations which apply to all nuts, or to a species, as well as 

 information regarding individual varieties. 



The establishment of a commercial nut orchard was the subject 

 of an address by Mr. Thomas P. Littlepage before the Washington 

 convention of the Northern Nut Growers Association in 1923. He 

 started in with faith as the first requisite and while, in due course, he 

 dwelt on hope and charity it is faith that is the first requisite; that 

 is, believing that the promises shown by results in small experimental 

 plantings will be borne out in larger ones, 



A remark by Judge Edwards at the Austin, Texas, meeting of the 

 National Nut Growers Association is something I have never forgotten. 

 He said that he had a great admiration for what the Northern Nut 

 Growers Association had done with the stubborn material with which 

 they had to work ; that in the south all that had been done was that a 

 few men had planted pecan nuts and from them had grown fine varie- 

 ties; and that one had little to do other than to look around and select 

 the treasures that God had provided; while in the North they even 

 had to breed varieties, in some instances, to get what they wanted; 

 and that, while propagation in the South was easy, it had taken years 

 of work by experts to accomplish it in the North. 



It is only fair to say however, that the contrast between the pecan 

 nuts of the South and the native hickory nuts foimd there is tremendous, 

 and I can well understand why Judge Edwards was impressed as he 

 was. In spite of the fact that the northern hickories, so far as I have 

 seen, oifer much more promise to the nut grower than the southern 

 ones do, nevertheless it is true that nut growing in the North has had 

 much more to overcome than it has in the South. 



It is over fifty years since the first fine variety of northern nuts 

 that we have (the Hales hickory) was brought to the attention of the 



