PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS

Honorable William S. Linton, Saginaw, Michigan

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I well realize that it is an extreme honor that has come to me in having been named as your President, conferring the privilege also of presiding at this important meeting, your Tenth Annual Session. It has been my lot for almost three score years to mingle largely in civic affairs through organized efforts, for man's betterment along many lines. But with all this experience I do not recall any single group, or undertaking of greater possible and probable value to the people of this country and especially the next and all future generations than the purpose for which we gather today. It is of such vast importance that earnestly and enthusiastically we find foremost in the work, "the best equipped, most intelligent, progressive and successful Agricultural Department" of any government on earth. We are signally honored by the co-operation of one of the most important members of the President's Cabinet, the Secretary of Agriculture, assisting in our program by the presence of leading officials of his staff, all endeavoring in every possible way to supply excellent sustaining foods to mankind, and to add from many choice products of field or of forest, to the joy and comforts of living.

The particular line of effort in which this organization is enlisted is worthy of at least some time and thought upon the part of all persons interested in promoting the welfare of the community, state or county in which they live. Those who will do their share, and there are thousands of them if the subject can be properly presented, can add largely to the food supply of the nation, and provide real delicacies for every table in the homes of the poor as well as in the mansions of the rich. It would be but a few years before we would have in size, and quality the aristocrats of the nut family, in walnuts, hickory nuts, butternuts, even beech nuts, the same as in fruits we have the Bartlett pear, the Northern Spy apple, the Naval orange, the Crawford peach, or the Brighton grape.

Work of inestimable value is being done by our membership in propagating improved varieties that will be rich and lasting in results. We cannot, however, afford to halt for this development of species as our own time is too short, but we can cause to be planted millions of seedlings out of which will come many choice varieties of the future. We would have had them now had our forefathers realized what could be accomplished along this line and the necessity for doing it.

Therefore I would urge with all earnestness that the work be not further postponed, but that we bend every energy to bring about an awakening in this matter that will cause general activity throughout the entire United States. There are several ways of doing this, any one of which should bring results. The only question about any of them being, who can spare the time necessary for this work. My pleasant acquaintance with the members of this Association proves you all to be one hundred per cent Americans, standing well up in your business and professions, and leaders in the civic life of your communities. These excellent points to your credit, really deter each and all from giving time throughout the year to the Association's work and permit only the annual gathering and the events connected therewith that are largely spasmodic only in action and effort.

The Association should be made large enough and strong enough financially to provide a Secretary with proper clerical assistance and fair compensation for work well done.

From fifty to two hundred members can be easily secured in every state in which the Northern nuts grow. Officials of government, States, counties and cities are ready to join in the movement. Road builders, owners of cut-over and other lands only need to have their attention called to what can be accomplished and the great majority will unite with us. The work of the American Forestry Association has promoted our cause also, and the establishing, and naming of historic trees throughout the land can well be made a feature of our plans. Only a day or two ago a Michigan paper carried the following item:

Mount Vernon Walnut ts Thriving in Ingham

Mason. Sept. 26.—Summit R. King, a pioneer of Mason, who was present when the Republican party was born "under the oaks" in Jackson county, has evolved a plan for raising historic trees in Ingham county.

In 1906 he visited the tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon and while there gathered some black walnuts from a tree on the grounds. He planted those and his trees are now in bearing.

He has placed a quantity of the nuts in the hands of the county school commissioner, Miss Daisy Call, to be given to the rural schools that the grounds may be beautified with trees planted in memory of George Washington.

Why not have Mount Vernon walnuts thus distributed throughout the Union. Every school boy and girl in the land would be delighted to get them for planting.

The supply would not equal one hundredth part of one per cent of the demand for them. Then select throughout the country other special or historic trees of various kinds or varieties of nuts and still I am sure the supply would not begin to equal the demand. Long ago I began to arrange for nut crops from some of these historic trees, planted by Washington at his beautiful Mount Vernon home, now the Mecca for prince or pauper and all those millions who love the freedom of glorious America.

Those nuts will be planted in the parks and on the grounds of the people of my home city this very year by the children of our schools who are now in their moulding being taught to revere the name of the father of our country.

This very act of patriotism will cause thousands of boys and girls to have fixed in their minds for youth or age the value of planting the useful trees that will in later years produce food of the very best character for the human race. Carry this message into every city, village and school district and the good work will be duplicated thousands of times and then the movement in which we have so earnestly engaged will have brought forth fruit in great abundance so that even the great majority of those living today, and certainly the generations to come must give this organization and its founders great credit for real and lasting benefits that will prevail for centuries to come.

We all desire at this very important period in our existence as an Association, to strengthen our forces and enlarge the scope of our work. To do it at once let me suggest the early choosing and naming of live vice-presidents in every state that may be united with us in membership; also a general committee on legislation. This committee can do much the coming year when legislatures throughout the country will be in their regular session, to cause the adoption of laws similar to the Michigan Statute known as the Penney Act, which provides for the planting of nut and other food bearing trees along the public highways.

It is one of the most progressive enactments in recent years and its good features should be adopted by every State, and the Federal Government as well, by applying its provisions to National highways also.

In conclusion I wish to thank each and every officer and member for uniform courtesies and favors extended to me throughout the year. My only regret being that official duties, extended traveling, and other unforeseen demands upon my time have prevented me from giving the close personal attention to every detail of the Northern Nut Growers Association business that it otherwise would have been my great pleasure to have done.

My gratitude is cordially extended to each and every member.

Mr. B. G. Foster: Mr. President and Fellow Members: I realize that children should be seen and not heard and I am merely a child in this organization. At the same time I believe under modern conditions children are being more and more heard and the older people are being put more and more in the background. So I am going to take the liberty of making a few remarks particularly with reference to the president's address. This is my first attendance at a meeting of the Northern Nut Growers' Association and I have profited very greatly by it. I have become very much interested in nut culture. In a small way I am stumbling along and learning something of the work and the development of this industry. At present it is merely a fad with me but I do not know but what it may become something more as I get into it. I have been particularly impressed this morning with the address of the president. There were one or two suggestions that he makes that I wish to refer to. I think it is an excellent suggestion to get the children interested in nut culture through historical nut trees if nuts can be secured from such trees and delivered to different school authorities.

Another is the question of having a representative from every state. I would like to inquire from the secretary if some such provision has been adopted.

The Acting Secretary: We have always had a list of state vice-presidents which you will find in each one of the reports. Those state vice-presidents have been selected because of their being the most active members in each particular state but they have never been especially active more than to turn in some communication about their work. I have never been able to get any of them to make any special campaign for new members.

Mr. Foster: Then, as I understand it, the president's idea is to urge these vice-presidents to take a more active interest in the affairs of the association.

The President: That is the point I desire to make.

Mr. Morris: When the constitution of the United States was drawn up it was said to be "insanely ideal." We do not have to stretch our imaginations this morning to the point of a question of our sanity when our president's compositions are put before us. His paper seems sanely ideal. There is only one thing that interests a child more than history, (unless it is Sunday school), and that is a dollar bill. Now if we are going to approach the children let us introduce the pragmatic side of giving the child an object lesson showing where the planting of a nut tree will bring a return in dollar bills that will ripen along with the leaves every autumn instead of just leaves alone. We should have in connection with various educational institutions a few object lesson trees. It seems to me that this is a responsibility of the state. A number of responsibilities have been put upon the state in the past and a number of responsibilities have been put upon the educational department in every state. So many of them, in fact, that hardly any legislature will stand without hitching when there is a question of diversion of "pork barrel" funds away from river and harbor appropriations toward education. We can show that very much larger river and harbor requirements will follow if our children raise so much of this great new feed supply that we have more things to transport. The question may be taken almost seriously from that point. In fact if you give further consideration to the matter it seems to me that this statement of mine, made somewhat in the spirit of levity, is like many other statements made in the spirit of levity. It has a basis in real fact. The development of that basis I will leave to your imagination.

Mr. McGlennon: In regard to Dr. Morris' remarks relative to the financial consideration, that appeals to me with peculiar force and I think we can very materially provide for it in an enlarged membership. For some time I have been giving very serious thought to the subject of enlarging the membership of the Northern Nut Growers Association. I think quite a substantial gain was made last year and I believe that a very large gain can be made this year. I think we ought to have a membership in the neighborhood of a thousand anyway. I believe we can increase it this year to at least 500. Probably I am particularly fortunate in having a source of supply of membership that perhaps the rest of the members have not, through the L. W. Hall Company. This company is handling our improved filberts and is getting a large number of orders and the people who have received plants during the past couple of years seem to be very much pleased with them. In many instances they have already borne fruit. The Hall company has received splendid letters in regard to them. In the fall and in the spring the Hall company sends out a large number of catalogues. This fall they will send something like a thousand, in the spring from five to seven thousand and in each of these catalogues the literature of the Northern Nut Growers Association can be included. We experimented a little last year along this line and I believe Mr. Bixby will bear me out in saying that there was quite a tangible response. I got a few members in and about Rochester through friends but I believe that I can almost guarantee at least a hundred members myself this year and probably more, particularly through the medium of the Hall agency. But, as Dr. Morris says, or practically said, there is nothing in this world that talks louder than a dollar so I thought I would come here prepared to back up my position and to guarantee at least 25 members for this year.

There is another matter to which I think we ought to give serious consideration and that is the matter of the American Nut Journal. It is the only nut journal, as I understand, in the country and I believe there is an inestimable future for it if we seize our opportunity or enable Mr. Olcott to seize his. At this time, I believe, he is not getting the support that he ought to have from this Association and the other nut associations of the country. He is a very able man, at one time the editor of the Post Express in Rochester, the classiest paper in Rochester, and we have some classy ones there, he is an educated man of large experience and very versatile and it seems to me he ought to have substantial support. So I came here with a certified check for 25 memberships to the association and 25 subscriptions to the American Nut Journal as a guarantee of good faith. I believe I can add 75 more.

There are some other things that I think we ought to give consideration to and that is the work that is being done by Dr. Deming and Mr. Bixby. I think these men should have special and substantial support, real support, money support, so that they can do things as they ought to be done at the time they ought to be done. I think we are selfish in asking these men to give so much of their time and attention and money to the affairs of this association without giving them better support. If we have more members we will have more money and more members will bring more members. This propaganda will be spread far and wide. The interest in nut culture is growing by leaps and bounds. I think this is the time to strike as a scientific organization. I think the Northern Nut Growers' Association is the most scientific of all of the nut growing associations. That is something of a guess, of course, but if they were put to the test I believe it would come out on top. Anyway put me down for the very best efforts that I can render to the end of building up membership and financial support of this association. It seems to me that with men like Deming, Bixby, Morris, Littlepage, and others whom I could mention, the scientific and practical ends of this association are being pretty well taken care of. We meet here in association and it is very lovely, something of a mutual admiration society; we go away and are likely to forget until it is about time to get busy with another meeting. Now it seems to me we ought to be busy all the year doing something so that when we come to the meeting like this we have something to report in the way of membership and money. That will make possible these plans that Dr. Morris suggested. I was unable to hear the president's address but it seems to me that more attention should be given to the matter of finances of this association and the membership.

I just want to add a remark or two in regard to Mr. Vollertsen who is going to read a paper on the filbert. We have found, and we certainly believe, he and I,—and he knows more than I do because he is on the ground all the time—I look after the sales end of it,—we have found that several of our smaller varieties of nuts are, in our estimation, decidedly superior to some of the larger varieties. While we believe that the consumer is going to give first thought to size he will be making a mistake if he passes by some of our smaller varieties which are splendidly filled, filled to capacity, very rich, and thin-shelled. I do not want the smaller varieties passed by.

Mr. Jones: I think the nurseries would be glad to co-operate in the getting of new members and it has occurred to me that they might like to donate trees to new members or plants or something that would attract them. That might be worked up with the secretary if it would be any great attraction for getting new members.

The President: I think that is a very good suggestion.

The Secretary-Treasurer: Mr. McGlennon spoke of the amount of time that the secretary had to give to the work. I can speak from experience and I can speak frankly because the secretary and the treasurer are different persons, although the office of the secretary treasurer has not yet been officially divided. The treasurer is supposed to have not much to do and the secretary to get the bulk of the work. While the finances of the association at the present time are not such that we can recommend the paying of a salary to the secretary, yet there should be a salary paid to the secretary sufficient so that he could employ someone to relieve him of a good portion of the detail which comes on him. I know by experience what that is. I would like to ask the association to authorize the treasurer to pay the secretary a salary not exceeding $500 a year. That is what it ought to be or whatever portion of that the finances will permit for this purpose. In offering that I do not want the secretary to think that he must begin to spend the money right away, because it is not in the treasury, but I have a lot of faith that we will get more money and will be enabled to pay that. So I want to ask your authority to do it.

Mr. Olcott: I would like to second that motion and also to endorse what Mr. McGlennon said, and Mr. Jones, in regard to new members. I think that is one of the things we need as much as anything right now and that we can get them if we go after them. I know that our secretaries, both Mr. Bixby and Dr. Deming, have done a great deal of work and that it takes a great deal of work to get new members. There are a good many other things on the schedule for the treasurer and secretary to do besides that. We have a system of vice-presidents for each state and one of my recent ideas has been that he might form the center for an increase of membership in his particular state through co-operation with the secretary of this association. If we do not keep after this matter after we adjourn we shall be just about where we are now a year from now. It is activity that counts. I am sure that if we provide for a salary for the secretary we will get busy and provide for that salary, so I make the motion that the treasurer be authorised to pay $500, or any portion of that amount that the association can afford, to the secretary.

Dr. Morris: I second the motion.

The motion was carried unanimously.

The Acting Secretary: You will notice that, in the question box, question number 12 is in relation to roadside planting of nut trees. More people, it seems to me, are interested in the roadside planting of nut trees than in any other one phase of nut planting. I get many questions about what is desirable to plant on the roadsides and many suggestions that the Association particularly interest itself in encouraging roadside nut planting. Therefore it seems to me that it would be advisable that this association should appoint a committee which should consider all the factors concerned in roadside planting of nut trees, and should draw up a bulletin which can be sent out to officials and people who make inquiry and to all people who are interested, giving them exact and specific information on the subject of road planting in each state, considering each state separately and suggesting what nut trees had best be planted in that particular state.

Mr. Jones: I think Dr. Deming's suggestion is a good one but I do not like the idea of waiting another year. I think we ought to do that right now. There is a big opportunity for producing new varieties. For instance, get each state to take up planting of the very best nuts they can get and then plant the seedlings on the roadside and we will get new varieties that will be better than anything we have now. If you plant common nuts you will get common nuts but if you plant fine nuts while you will still get a large number of ordinary nuts you will get some that will be fine and some that will be better than anything you plant, if you plant enough of them. I think that is the greatest opportunity we have in roadside planting.

The Acting Secretary: I think this is the proper course to follow, that the committee appointed should have power to issue a bulletin without waiting for the next convention. I would like to see our president at the head of the committee.

Mr. Jones: I would like to see them get the nuts this year. There is a good crop of nuts this year, black walnuts, hickory and other nuts.

The Acting Secretary: I move that a committee be appointed by the president, the number to be determined by the president, and our president, Mr. Linton, to be the chairman of the committee, to consider the compilation and issue of a bulletin on roadside planting of nut trees.

Mr. Bixby: I second the motion.

The motion was carried unanimously.

Mr. Pomeroy: You will find this argument probably will be used by some that the trees will be destroyed by automobile parties and children hammering the nuts off with sticks and stones. I have a few nut trees planted along the roadside now that are in bearing. They have been in bearing, some of them, six or eight years and they are within forty feet of a school house with a large attendance of children. I have had no trouble at all with the children gathering the nuts or tampering with the trees. Of course they take a few—I would take them if I were in their place,—but none of any consequence. Automobile parties passing along there seldom bother them—although they are worse than the children to tell the truth. You will hear that argument, that a food producing tree along the roadside will be injured by travelers.

Dr. Morris: Mr. Pomeroy's remark relates either to one of two things, to bad nuts or good children. We will not have that feature throughout the country at large. It is an important point, however, but if this is to be committee work it seems to me that perhaps Mr. Pomeroy and others might offer their testimony at the time there is a committee meeting for bulletin purposes and we ought not to go on with this discussion at this time.

The President: The next thing on the program is an address by Dr. William A. Taylor, Chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry, on "The Place of Nut Trees in our Northern Horticulture."