SEEDS SOILS TRANSPLANTING^ 45 



who did not know what we know about the subject 

 to-day. Nut trees should not be propagated from 

 seed excepting when they are to serve the purpose of 

 grafting stocks. Seedling trees are not desirable for 

 fruiting purposes. They do not come true to varietal 

 type from the seed. They are like apples in this re- 

 spect. Most of the nut trees are wind pollinated and 

 under such circumstances crossing is occurring so 

 continually that many ancestors are represented in 

 the progeny of any one tree. If we plant the seed of 

 Baldwin apples and Seckel pears we do not get 

 a Baldwin apple or a Seckel pear from the seed. 

 The same is true of a Taylor shagbark or a Hall 

 walnut. As a matter of fact, the progeny of a 

 superior variety may be inferior even to the average 

 type. Nature likes to preserve a sort of average or 

 mean type in all established forms in organic life 

 and the nuts or fruits which serve man's purpose best 

 are rarely those which belong to the mean or average 

 type. The remarkably good ones from man's point 

 of view belong to abnormal forms. Nature sees no 

 particular value in a hickory nut with a very thin 

 shell which would expose it to enemies, yet man 

 chooses that kind of a nut and he reproves Nature 

 for being so indifferent as to make thick-shelled ones. 

 From man's point of view the thin-shelled nut is the 

 one which should have been made in the first place. 

 That is the one which he propagates. The fact that 

 seedling nuts do not breed true to type has not been 

 generally understood. Many men have paid fancy 

 prices for exceptional pecans or shagbark hickories 



