Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting | Page 6

the gathering and set forth in detail the plans for
the convention, with directions for finding different buildings, and
suggestions concerning the several scheduled events. Dr. Colby
concluded his talk by calling for a few remarks from one of our
Canadian members, George H. Corsan, of Toronto, who is probably
(with Dr. Deming) one of two nonagenarians in the association.
Mr. Corsan spoke as follows:

MR. CORSAN: My neck is still stiff. On the 27th of May I was up
looking at a budding and I was coming down a 40-foot ladder, and
when I was 22 feet from the ground the ladder had a bad rung and I
took a head-first dive for the earth. I believe my tissues were made out
of nuts, fruit, honey, and grain and I was able to survive. I looked
exactly like a man in the gallows. They said, "You will be in the
hospital for eight weeks or more." In two weeks and two days I was
hoeing corn.
On the way here I dropped into various places that were of interest.
Jack Miners. The place is really better than when their father was alive.
I came over across the river and dropped into Battle Creek.
I spent a good time hunting for Kellogg and I couldn't find him. One
person told me he was dead. He was quite peppy over the telephone
and I was amazed because he had been ill and well, then ill and then
well. He says, "Come on over. I am ready and looking for you." He
wrote me a letter scolding me. He asked where I was going and I told
him. I asked him, "Do you know you are a life member of that
association?"
He has a monster dog descended from Rin-Tin-Tin and that dog is
clean, intelligent and looks like a human being. He is on the shore of
Gull Lake, a seven-mile-long, one-mile-wide lake. Marvelous looking.
He had abandoned his big house and he gave that to soldiers and sailors
and sick men. I had asked for him and they have never heard of him.
That's how he hides himself. He is back on the lake again. So I hunted
and found a house so unique that no one but he could have a house like
that built. There he was and he was peppy as ever. He has a new man
on the bird sanctuary. He was fully alive.
I don't want to take up any more of your time. I have had call on me an
enormous number of people who are more interested in nut growing
than ever. I can't blame them, with the price of meat so high, and so
many doctors advising the displacement of animal foodstuff by the
eating of nuts.
It was on my 94th birthday that I got a plaster cast and was in it two

weeks and two days. I will tell you a little secret. I was supposed to
have a diet. They had a dietician and I said I didn't need to eat anything.
I drank orange juice and pineapple juice and apple juice and grapefruit
juice. I ate some European black bread with carroway seeds; it tasted
bitter. I don't eat so much as I did before the accident. I am trying to be
careful of myself.
I want to have a talk with Wilkinson on the black walnut. I have four
big trees of Stabler, and hardly a nut grows on them. Down there they
behave themselves and have big crops. How do they have such big
crops? I like them. I don't believe there is a tastier nut in the world.
Even my hybrid Asiatic butternut cross. I have got quite a lot of them
here to show you and the biggest filberts in the world and they are all
seedlings.
Not a hickory nut, butternut or black walnut. I had a ton of black
walnuts. There is a good crop of hybrids, filberts, English walnuts, and
there are some other nuts. I am north of Lake Ontario. When any of you
are going across, drop in and see me.
TUESDAY MORNING SESSION
DR. ROHRBACHER: Will you please come to order. My gavel is in
Iowa City, so I will use my pocket knife. We have to make a little
change in our program. Our leader, Mr. Magill, is not yet here.
First on our program this morning will be Dr. C. J. Birkeland, head of
the Department of Horticulture at the University of Illinois. It's
wonderful to have such a splendid response so early in the morning.
DR. BIRKELAND: It is certainly nice to see such a big turnout and we
certainly welcome you to Illinois. We have been interested in nuts for a
long time and probably will