HALES' PAPER SHELL HICKORY.

My shagbark (paper shell) hickory tree was on my farm when I bought it in 1868. It had been noticed by the neighbors as bearing a fine nut and was watched by them for the nuts, but they did not appreciate the value of them. The late Andrew S. Fuller had not seen them, but asked me to bring him a few. When he saw them he was surprised and at once pronounced them the finest hickories he had ever seen, and named them "Hales' Paper Shell." The hickory is one of the most valuable of North American nuts. It is of a variable nature. I have over twenty old trees on my place, and no two bear nuts of the same shape or size, and although some neighbors planted some nuts from the old tree and produced fruit from them they were only ordinary sized, so that it is necessary to propagate them to retain their value. About 1880 Parsons & Son, of Flushing, N. Y., grafted some in pots under glass, from which trees these nuts sent are the product. The fruit is fully as fine as the original tree. Prof. C. B. Sargent of the Arnold Arboretum has taken great interest in the nut. I have two trees grafted on wild saplings by Jackson Dawson near bearing size.

Those are the only trees successfully grafted, out of thousands done in the North outside, from which I am afraid grafting outside in the North is a failure on hickory stocks. There may be a better chance on pecan stock, which I have not thoroughly tested under favorable circumstances. I have been sending northern pecan nuts and had them planted, and sent scions for working on them in the South; had some failures from natural causes. Simpson Bros. of Monticello, Florida, have had fair success there. My share of two year old trees are on the way here. Of the value of these nuts too much cannot be said. Mr. Fuller ranked them superior to the Madeira nut. It has remarkable keeping qualities.

It has taken from eighteen to twenty-five years for my grafted trees to come into bearing.

I earnestly hope that with the knowledge gained so far, the means of propagation on a large scale will soon be discovered and successfully carried on. What a gain it would be to the wealth of our food production and luxury. The American hickory would then stand highest on the list of our native nuts.

President Morris: Are there any comments upon this paper of Mr. Hales? So much is being said about the Hales hickory, it seems to me that possibly we ought to put on record some thoughts in the matter. Mr. Hales is entitled to more credit than any other man for bringing forward the development of the shagbark hickory, and his enthusiasm was based upon this remarkable nut on his grounds. It is a very large nut, and, like all large nuts, is much coarser in character than small nuts, and, like all large nuts, lacks delicacy of flavor that we find in small nuts. It is thinner shelled than most of the shagbarks that we would see in many days spent in the woods, but when we have for comparison some smaller nuts, we find shells very much thinner than the shell of the Hales. The Hales, like many other large hickories, keeps much better than the small hickories of finer texture and more delicate quality, and it may be very good at three years of age, while some of the most delicious of the smaller, more tender and delicate nuts are spoiling at the end of six months. I don't know that Mr. Hales would take exception to my way of stating this, but it seems to me that he ought to feel that we give him all honor, that we think it a remarkable nut, that it is a nut, because of its size and features, worthy of the enthusiasm he gave it. There is apt to be some misunderstanding as to the exact position this holds in relation to other shagbark hickories.

Mr. Littlepage: What is its bearing record as to quantity?

President Morris: The tree has been cut so much for scions that it has never had a fair chance. It is a prolific tree. It is well worthy of propagation.

Mr. Littlepage: It is, perhaps,—judging from looking at it—a very fine shagbark for commercial purposes. Isn't it true that within the next ten years there will, in all probability, be a complete reversion in the mind of the nut culturist as to the kind and quality of the nut he will propagate. I will supplement that by saying that heretofore, both in the pecan and other nut fields, the whole tendency has been toward something big. Now, the wise fellows in the South today are beginning to get away from that. I have made many trips down there, and I find there is a very changing sentiment. I want to say that in my observation the future price of the various nuts of the country is going to be determined by the price of nut meat; that the meats are going to be put on the market, and while there will always be plenty of nuts marketed in the shell, the price of the nut meat will be the dominant factor. I was walking down G Street in Washington the other day with an ex-United States Senator, and ex-member of Congress, and an ex-Governor, and they passed a nut store, and saw in the window some nuts, also a big box of nut meats. Everyone went in, and all passed up the nuts and bought the nut meat. That expresses, to my notion, the tendency that is coming; and that thing is going, then, to determine very largely the question of quality.

President Morris: I think we certainly are going to have a complete change in ideas about raising nuts. We are going to raise big ones of the kinds where everybody will buy one pound and nobody will buy two pounds. We are going to raise nuts that will appeal to the people who purchase things in the open market, and who never in their lives get hold of anything that is good. We are going also to raise nuts that will appeal to connoisseurs, and that will be bought by people who know one work of art from another. In other words, we are going to make the progress in nut culture that has been made in other fields of horticulture. At the present time, if one could raise a pear as big as a watermelon and tasting like the rind, that would be the pear that would sell in the market. But the connoisseur buys the Seckel in place of it. When there is a pear like the Kieffer that will fill the top of the tree so there is no room for leaves and branches, the market men are going to raise that pear. But when we go into the market, we go around a block to escape the place where they sell the Kieffer pear, and we buy the Bartlett. We have precisely the same problems in nut culture.

Mr. Pomeroy: I have been thinking some on this line. I have spent a good many half hours in the last four or five years with an old German in Buffalo. He has a stand on one of the big markets. I find that he has a whole lot to say in regard to what the people buy. He has found this out, and he has been there a good many years. He says, "I have been getting black walnuts from the same farmer boy for six or seven years. They are fine; try one." He has learned something about the different trees throughout that section, and about some nuts that are being shipped in, and he can tell the varieties. He has customers that do come back after the second package of nuts. He is trying to keep those customers one year after another. He is creating the demand. When I was a youngster, if I could have received the prices for black walnuts and butternuts that youngsters get now, I would have thought I was a capitalist. Butternuts are retailing at two dollars and two dollars and a half, and black walnuts the same.

President Morris: We have got to get away from the idea that we are going to find the best hickory nut or the best walnut or the best nut of any kind in the largest nut. Nature spreads out just so much material in the way of flavor and good quality of a nut, and if it is in a large nut, those good qualities are spread out thin; if it is in a small nut, they are concentrated.

Professor Lake: I wish I were as optimistic as Mr. Littlepage in this matter. That is because he has been studying all nuts for twenty-five or thirty years, and I have only been dabbling around in Persian walnuts for about twenty years. I have been dabbling with apples twenty-five or more years, and the real connoisseurs of the apple have been telling us during that time that the Ben Davis would be wiped out inside of ten years. I heard that twenty years ago. I believe that there are more Ben Davis apples being consumed by the public today than any other one apple. Notwithstanding that, every man who knows good apples goes out and decries it. It is because that apple can be grown anywhere by anybody at any time, and will be eaten by the people. The kind of nut that is going to make the money the next twenty-five or thirty years is the nut that is prolific, of fair quality, that can be grown by any man, and that has a fairly good appearance. I believe that the process of educating the public on the matter of quality is going to be tremendously slow. It is not always the case, however, that the smaller the size, the better the quality. A medium size would be better. The Yellow Newtown is quite a large apple, and it is superior in quality to the Winesap.

President Morris: I was stating a general rule.

Professor Lake: I fear we aren't going to be able to educate the people. How many people who eat nuts know anything about their quality? Dr. Morris has got the ideal of the best nut in walnuts, for instance, the French Mayette. That is the connoisseur's choice. I know of many people who will tell you very frankly they prefer the American grown Franquette, which is much more starchy in make-up and much less nutty.

Mr. Littlepage: I think there is a great deal in what Professor Lake says. I am not sure he has got the cause of the facts he states. One reason why the Ben Davis is being planted is, as he stated, that it will grow almost anywhere; but the reason the public accept the Ben Davis is because they can't get enough of another at a reasonable price. There isn't any doubt that if there were plenty others at a reasonable price the Ben Davis wouldn't be used at all. We hear so much today about this high cost of living. Of course, there are artificial conditions that have contributed to this to a greater or less extent; but the principal element is that we have come up against the problem of feeding the great American public, that has grown faster than the facilities have grown. The time for low priced food products is gone forever. Yet there is a good deal in this commercial phase of it.

President Morris: The Hales hickory is going to be like the Ben Davis apple, one of the very most popular in the market.

Doctor Deming: I will say regarding the retail price of nuts that in New York City shelled filberts are priced at $1.25 a pound, shelled almonds $1.00, ordinary run of hickories and chestnuts in the shells twenty cents, black walnuts in the shell twelve cents.

President Morris: Hickories will give somewhat over fifty pounds to the bushel; black walnuts about forty. If we make a rough estimate of fifty pounds to the bushel for shagbarks, and forty for Persian walnuts, we will probably have a good fair average.