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grew the better. From the standpoint of saving time and expense in 

 growing timber the same will hold, and so the selection of individuals 

 that are of the most rapid growth is likely at the time to select the 

 trees that will produce the best timber. 



I have visited many of the parent nut trees wliich are being propa- 

 gated and, as a class, they are rapid growing trees. Why this is so 

 I do not know. It may be simply the result of the survival of the 

 fittest in the struggle for existence in their early days. Furthermore, 

 were they not rapid growers they would not be likely to have the vigor 

 to produce large crops of nuts, and this is one quality which makes a 

 tree deemed worthy of propagation. Be that as it may, however, it 

 is not the less a fact that our propagated nut trees and shrubs, as a 

 class, are remarkable not only for their fruit but for the rapidity of 

 their growth. I will give an example recently seen. Not so far from 

 Toronto there is a heartnut tree notable because of the excellent nuts 

 it bears ; it is the largest and seemingly the most rapid growing heart- 

 nut tree I have ever seen. The tree is apparently not much over 30 

 years or so of age, and yet it is about two feet in diameter and over 60 

 feet spread. Seedlings from this tree, which evidently had accidentally 

 been pollinated with butternut pollen, and produced Japan walnut x 

 butternut hybrids, are about 40 ft. high and nearly 12 in. in diameter, 

 and seemingly only about 15 years old. 



Other instances of the remarkable growth of hybrid trees are well 

 known. I will relate some. The parent "Carolina poplar" tree at 

 Metz, France, in 1914 was described by Augustine Henry as 81 years 

 old, no less than 150 ft. tall and 25 ft. in girth (about 8 feet in 

 diameter) five feet above the ground and still growing rapidly. The 

 James River walnut in Virginia was described in 1905 by Col. W. A. 

 Jones, U. S. A., as 10 ft. in diameter at the height of a man's head and 

 so lofty that even though surrounded by large trees it seemed from a 

 distance to be standing alone. The Greenbay hybrid pecan near Bur- 

 lington, la., stands on land owned by the Mississippi River Power 

 Co., which they were obliged to purchase when the Keokuk dam was 

 built because it was subject to overflow. In order to get something 

 from their enforced purchase, they sent men through and cut the 

 timber. The Greenbay hybrid pecan was so large, however, that they 

 did not have tools big enough to cut it and so the tree escaped. 



