LUTHER BURBANK 
The reason for this, doubtless, is that the 
hickory is a tree of very slow growth, and that it is 
also exceedingly difficult to propagate by budding 
or grafting, or any other process except from the 
seed. 
The prospect of improving the product of a 
tree that does not bear until it is ten or fifteen years 
old, and that resists all efforts to force it to early 
bearing, is not alluring, considering the short span 
of human life. Yet we can scarcely doubt that the 
hickory nut will presently be brought within the 
ken of the plant experimenter, and that there will 
ultimately be developed nuts of very choice varie- 
ties, comparable in size, probably, to the English 
walnut, and having a quality that will place them 
at least on a par with any other nut now grown in 
the temperate zones. 
Even in the wild state, the best of shellbark 
hickories bear nuts of unchallenged quality. It is 
a matter of course that these nuts can be improved 
by cultivation and selective breeding. 
Material for such selective breeding is fur- 
nished abundantly by the wide variation of hick- 
ories in the wild state. I had observed this varia- 
tion in my boyhood days, just as I had noted the 
variation in the chestnuts. The shagbark hickory, 
doubtless the best of the tribe, was quite abundant 
along the banks of the Nashua River near my 
[132] 
