42 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE 



The best varieties like the Lawson and some of that type will not 

 necessarily deteriorate. We should be more careful in the selection 

 of buds and perpetuate the type which is most desirable. We want 

 thoroughness, we want to be closer observers and many things we 

 hastily say are wrong are simply due to the fact of our superficiality. 



Professor Alwood: I would like to call on Dr. Woods on bud 

 variations. 



Dr. Woods: Referring to the case of the fern varieties just dis- 

 cussed, might it not be possible that these were really hybrids instead 

 of varieties produced by bud variation? It is well known, of course, 

 that the crossing of ferns is readily accomplished through the trans- 

 fer of spermatozoids small bodies corresponding to the pollen of higher 

 plants. While some variation might occur in ferns as a result of feed- 

 ing and of changed environment, or as a result of what might be called 

 mutations, it seems to me more probable that such variations are to 

 be explained as a result of some previous crossing or hybridization, 

 probably accidentally accomplished. The difference between a bud 

 variety and a variety produced by hybridization is, as Mr. Rudd has 

 pointed out, often not very great. But variations of the order of muta- 

 tions are sometimes produced by high feeding or by change in environ- 

 ment. This is particularly noticeable in bringing tropical plants north, 

 where they tend to break up into a large number of varieties through 

 the influence of climate. No new potentiality, however, can be intro- 

 duced into a plant by this process of breeding, and at best it is a chance 

 method of securing variation. On the other hand, by hybridization or 

 crossing, distinct potentialities of different individuals can be mixed in 

 almost any desired relation, and, if the work is intelligently done, it 

 can be made much more effective than dependence upon bud variation 

 as a method of securing new varieties. 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 

 CHAIRMAN, PROFESSOR L. R. TAFT. 



NUT CULTURE IN OUR RURAL ECONOMY. 

 WM. A. TAYLOR, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



Discussion of the attractiveness and profit of nut culture has in 

 recent years awakened much interest among our people in the possibili- 

 ties of this rather newly developed industry. Among dwellers in cities 

 and towns the idea of nut culture appears to be particularly attrac- 

 tive and in the case of the average person to suggest as its principal 

 feature the sylvan shade and bosky dell of the nut harvest rather 

 than the hard work essential to success in other lines of orcharding. 



As the result of considerable attention to the subject, the writer 

 has been forced to the conclusion that in the mind of the average per- 

 son the term nut culture stands for : 



1st. A very pleasant harvest time in which a bountiful crop of 

 beautiful nuts of fine quality is garnered to be later sold at very re- 

 munerative prices. 



