One fall day in 1926, when I was at the home of a neighboring farmer, he offered me some mixed hickory nuts he had received from an uncle in Iowa.  As he knew of my interest in nuts, he wanted my opinion of them.  I looked them over and explained that they were no better than little nutmegs, having very hard shells and a small proportion of inaccessible meat.  To demonstrate this, I cracked some between hammer and flatiron.  My demonstration was conclusive until I hit one nut which almost melted under the force I was applying.  The shape of this nut was enough different from the others to enable me to pick out a handful like it from the mixture.  I was amazed to see how very thin-shelled and full of meat they were.  Upon my request, this neighbor wrote to his uncle, John Bailey, of Fayette, Iowa, asking if he knew from which tree such fine nuts had come.  Unfortunately he did not, because the nuts had been gathered from quite a large area.  After corresponding with Mr. Bailey myself, I decided that I would go there and help him locate the tree, although it was nearly Christmas and heavy snowfalls which already covered the ground would make our search more difficult.

[Illustration:  Carl Weschcke, Jr., hand holding Weschcke hickory in hull. 9/15/42 Photo by C. Weschcke]

On my arrival in Fayette, I called on Mr. Bailey, who was glad to help me hunt out the tree in which I had so much interest.  We called A. C. Fobes, the owner of the farm from which the nuts were believed to have come, and arranged to go out there with him by bob sleigh.  A rough ride of six or seven miles brought us to the farm and we began our quest.  Once there, Mr. Bailey had a more definite idea of where to look for the tree from which these particular nuts came than he had had before and we had not been at our task for more than an hour before it was located.  There were still quite a few nuts on the ground beneath it, which identified it accurately.  It was a large shagbark whose first living branch was fully sixteen feet off the ground and, since we had no ladder with us, I had to shin up the tree to cut off some of the smaller branches.  This shagbark, true to its name, had rough bark which tore not only my clothes but some of the skin on my legs as well and whereas the climbing up was difficult, the coming down was equally so.  Having contracted verbally with Mr. Fobes to buy the tree, I packed the branches I had cut in cardboard boxes with straw packing and carefully brought them home to St. Paul.

I wrote at once to my friend, J. F. Jones, of my expedition, telling him of my plans to propagate this hickory.  I also sent him some of the nuts from the parent tree and samples of extra-good nuts from other trees growing near it so that he could give me his opinion of them.  Mr. Jones responded by advising me about the kind of a contract to make with Mr. Fobes in regard to both the purchasing and propagation of the original hickory tree and he urged the latter enthusiastically.