THE PRESIDENT:  I have made considerable investigation of this.  I have found several English walnuts topworked on black walnuts, one done eighty years ago down in Maryland.  The tree is reported to have borne twenty-five bushels of nuts.  I think there is good explanation for the pecan-hickory trouble.  A hickory grows for a short time in early summer and does not grow much, but a pecan grows twice as much.  Therefore the hickory roots cannot feed the pecan top enough to make both vegetation and fruit.  We are, in this city, in a very unusual place.  Not only is it the center of a great wealth of seedling Persian walnut trees, but we have in the parks a great tree collection under Superintendent Laney.  This is a very fine and notable collection, including American and foreign trees, some of which we will see this afternoon.

Adjournment at 12:12 P.M.

Photographs of the convention were then taken on the steps of the City
Hall.

THURSDAY EVENING SESSION.

Convened at 8:20 P.M., Dr. Smith presiding.

Attendance about twenty.

A Nominating Committee was appointed, consisting of Messrs. Littlepage,
C. A. Reed, J. F. Jones, Webber, and Teter.

At this point was given the address by C. A. Reed.

AN APPEAL TO OWNERS OF HARDY NUT TREES

C. A. REED, NUT CULTURIST, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
WASHINGTON, D. C.

Ever since the colonists first established themselves in the Western Hemisphere, nut trees have been planted up and down the Atlantic Coast.  One of the species oftenest included in such planting was a walnut, a native to Persia which, with Romanism, had spread across Europe and the channel into England.  In the Old World it had variously been known as Jove’s nut, under the supposition that it had once been the food of the gods; Royal nut, meaning King nut; and by other common names which would be interesting to discuss but which are not pertinent in this connection.  In England it had been known merely as the “walnut,” but in the New World, in order to distinguish it from the walnut found here, it was called the “English” walnut.  In the trade today it is commonly known by the Old World name, other walnuts being distinguished from it by prefixing their common names, as Eastern, California, Mexican or Japanese black walnut, etc.  However, being a native of Persia, it was long ago decided that the correct name of this nut should be “Persian” walnut, and not “English” walnut.  As such it has now been referred to in scientific publications for well towards a quarter of a century.