Progress has been slow and not concerted.  Seedling trees have been planted under the firm conviction that they would come true, or because methods of propagation other than by seedage were not understood.

The Persian walnut orchards of California from which today the bulk of the production is being realized, are of seedling trees.  However, the Californians have learned their lesson and today are replacing their orchards with budded stock as rapidly as possible.  They have found that while the Persian walnut, which for centuries has been grown from seed, will reproduce itself fairly true to type, it does not repeat true to variety.  Every tree, no matter how carefully its parentage may have been guarded, is unlike any other.  The seedlings differ in traits of vigor, hardiness, susceptibility to disease, time of beginning to bear, productiveness, and longevity, and the nuts vary in size, form, thickness of shell, ease of cracking, and in kernel characteristics.

The people of California have also found that in many ways, Persian walnut trees on their own roots are less desirable than are those budded or grafted on the roots of some black walnut.

The earliest pecan planters likewise set seedling trees, partly because no others were available, but more largely because of a supposition that such seedlings would come true.  Later on, planters chose grafted trees of large varieties, irrespective of others’ merits or demerits.  Today, the orchards of both seedling trees and illy-selected varieties are being topworked at great expense of time, labor, and money.

In the northern and eastern part of the United States, the situation until very recently has been one of practical standstill.  Efforts with foreign nuts have resulted in our being but little ahead of the starting point of a couple of centuries ago.

The great majority of the Persian walnut, chestnut, and hazel trees which have been tried have failed us; some have even brought fatal or near-fatal diseases to us.

At first thought, we would feel compelled to abandon all further efforts with the foreign nuts; but not all that have been tried are guilty of offence or failure.  Here and there, from New England to Michigan and from Maryland to Missouri, we are finding occasional nut trees either in groups or standing singly, which because of their age, vigor, productiveness, and quantity and quality of nuts, appear to be fit foundation stock for the varieties so much needed in this part of the country.  A number of such are being propagated by the nurserymen and, as the members here present know, are being disseminated.

The present great need is for knowledge regarding the location of other such trees, not only of the foreign species, but of the natives as well.  The Northern Nut Growers’ Association and the Federal Department of Agriculture at Washington together are seeking to find Persian, Japanese, or black walnut, Asiatic, European or American chestnut, European or American hazel, and native butternut, hickory, pecan, chinquapin and beech trees of more than ordinary merit.  Upon the locating of, and the propagation from such trees, as new varieties, apparently depends the future of nut growing east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio and Potomac Rivers.