Northern Nut Growers Association, report of the proceedings at the sixth annual meeting | Page 9

to the
boys and girls of the future. In many ways the children of this country
are educating their parents and it is not an impossible idea to think of
the parents of the future being converted by the influence of their

children to the desirability if not the necessity of growing trees and nut
trees, the fruit of which will give pleasant healthfulness and at the same
time aid in the saving of the daily wage and in the support of the
commonwealth. I wish to emphasize this idea of considering not alone
the financial return from the trees and the forests of this state. As the
son of a lumberman and as a forester I am, of course, most vitally
interested in the growing of trees as a business proposition, but I feel
that such an organization as yours, especially, should look at this matter
not alone from actual financial returns, but because of indirect benefits
such as the making of outdoor people of us Americans. This can be
done, I believe, to a very considerable extent by giving our people,
especially the boys and girls, a purpose for getting out into the woodlot
and the forests wherever they occur in the state.
The women of this state are interested vitally these days not only in
their own welfare as possible citizens, but in the improving of living
conditions and opportunities of our people. We should have more
women interested in the work of this association and interested in
seeing that the future value of nuts is appreciated by the wage-earners
of the state, both because of their healthfulness and because of the
possibility of cheapening somewhat the cost of living. I urge upon the
organization a campaign of education, a campaign which will reach
through the women's clubs, civic organizations, schools and state
associations in a way that will cause the people to demand more nuts
for food and more nut trees as an absolutely indispensable part of the
complete utilization of both the agricultural and forest soils of the state.
The agencies working for agriculture and forestry in a state like New
York understand these problems, but often it remains for an
organization like yours to bring these forces into active play and to
produce the results for which you are working. Before you can achieve
lasting results and results commensurate with the time and effort which
you are putting into the organization, you must get hold of the man and
the woman who spend the dollars for the living of our people.
The State College of Forestry at Syracuse Experimenting with Nut
Culture

Soon after the organization of the New York State Forest Experiment
Station south of Syracuse the college took up the matter of growing nut
trees and of improving the quality of nuts of native species. On the
New York State Forest Experiment Station just south of Syracuse,
where the college is growing a million forest trees a year, there is a
woodlot of thirty acres. In this woodlot were a number of native nut
trees and these have been set aside for the purpose of grafting and
improving to see what can be done in helping out native nut trees of
different ages and sizes.
In 1913 the college purchased a thousand acres of cut-over land two
hours south of Buffalo in Cattaraugus County. At the same time it
purchased one hundred and thirteen acres lying along the main line of
the New York Central Railroad at Chittenango in Madison County.
This past spring nut trees were ordered from nurseries in Pennsylvania
and planted in the heavy soils on the Chittenango Forest Station and
also on the State Forest Experiment Station at Syracuse. At the
Salamanca station young nut trees are being staked so that they may be
protected and cared for with a hope of developing them as
nut-producing trees. The college plans, as a part of its work in the
Division of Forest Investigations, to see what can be done in the way of
grafting chestnut sprouts and in introducing nut-growing trees for the
purpose of demonstrating that idle lands within farms may be used
profitably for nut culture. The college will be very glad, indeed, to learn
of any native nut trees of unusual value anywhere in New York as it is
anxious to get material for grafting to native stock already growing on
its various forest stations.
DR. SMITH: It was an exceedingly great pleasure to me to listen to that
address by the Dean of the New York State College of Forestry. I want
to assure you that his address marks an epoch. He tells us that the State
of New York is going to experiment in nut growing, give place, time
and money; and this is what I