Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twelfth Annual Meeting | Page 6

what was here. He went to Buffalo and
crossed the lakes to Detroit. Detroit was then a city of about two
thousand inhabitants. And then he had the desire to go up into the wilds
where nothing but wild animals and wild people lived; so he went up
on a trail that led to what is now Pontiac perhaps thirty or forty miles
northwest of Saginaw; that was about the end of the trail. There were
one or two settlers who lived there. He picked up a couple of Indian
guides and started through the trackless forest, sixty or seventy miles
up through the northwest to what is now Saginaw. He had his desire
fully satisfied. He was eaten up by mosquitoes and rattlesnakes in the
swamps and marshes; he could not sleep nor anything else; so he came
back. That was away back in 1831, fifty years or more after your
people were fighting and struggling for the liberty of this country.
I wish to say in closing that we all highly appreciate the welcome that
has been extended to us on behalf of the Mayor of this fine city.
THE PRESIDENT: Next on the program will come the report of the
secretary.
THE SECRETARY: I regret the smallness of the secretary's
accomplishment for the past year. Except for the editing of the annual
report--which is much a matter of cutting out superfluous words--and
the effort to get speakers for this convention, he has attempted very
little.
This is not, however, for lack of things that could and should have been
done. An energetic campaign for new members is the most obvious
desideratum. The committee to prepare and issue a bulletin on the
roadside planting of nut trees, arranged to give information for every
part of the country, has been innocuous as well as useless. Perhaps this
meeting will afford stimulus and material enough to get it to work.
I think that few of the members realize how the inactivity of the
secretary has been more than made up for by the industry of the
treasurer. Perhaps they are reciprocally cause and consequence. Not
only has the treasurer discharged the usual duties of that office but he

has also attended to most of the correspondence and clerical work. He
has conducted the nut contests which, under his management, have
developed to formidable proportions requiring immense expenditure of
time and effort.
These nut contests have now become so widely known as to return us a
good idea of what we may expect of the native nuts of the country.
Undoubtedly we have not yet found the best nuts that this country
produces, except perhaps in the case of the pecan. But Mr. Bixby's
labors, continuing the work begun by Dr. Morris, have reached such
results that I think he will be willing to say that we have nearly reached
the limit of natural excellence in the nuts already discovered.
In fact it seems to me that we have reached the point where further
improvement in nuts for cultivation is to be looked for especially from
purposeful hybridizing by man. It should be another of the chief aims
of this association to induce self-perpetuating institutions to get
together the material necessary for such work. Such material already
exists in incomplete form--incomplete, that is, especially in
horticultural varieties--as in the Arnold Arboretum and in the Public
Park at Rochester. The Arnold Arboretum, through our treasurer's
efforts, has agreed to give more attention to nut growing and breeding.
The St. Louis Botanical Garden and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden,
through the efforts and generosity of Mr. Bixby and Mr. Jones, have
made special plantings of horticultural varieties, and this summer the
New York Botanical Garden was induced to set out a number of grafted
and seedling nut trees given by Mr. Jones, Mr. Bixby, Mr. W. C. Reed,
the McCoy Nut Nurseries and others.
But unless this association can keep their interest alive it is likely that
some of these institutional plantings will be neglected, especially as
regards the highest development of their possibilities. In one botanical
garden visited this summer the casual nut tree plantings running back
thirty years have been entirely neglected and the trees are stunted
almost to extinction. I hope that our members will lose no opportunity
to visit these institutions and ask to see the nut tree plantings. One or
two such visits in a year will help to keep our wards in the institutional

mind.
We cannot expect from these gardens, at present at least, interest in
breeding experiments. That is more properly a function of agricultural
experiment stations. These are so short manned and short funded, so
absorbed in problems offering quicker results, that it is difficult to get
them even to consider nut growing. I do not recall