industry in the Tennessee Valley and Nashville Basin.
Four commercial cracking plants had shelled 10 million pounds of nuts
purchased in 1942. This year, cracking plants have offered to buy
unlimited quantities of nuts in the shell at the relatively good price
of $4.50 per 100 pounds. Because of the manpower shortage, especially on
the farm, the collection of nuts has not exceeded the preceding year.
Pasteurizing plants had processed a quarter of a million pounds of
kernels purchased in 1942. This year only three pasteurizing plants will
operate, and a smaller quantity of kernels will be processed. The kernel
supply from the home-cracking industry has decreased because the
sanitation requirements of the Federal Food and Drug Administration are
difficult to meet in the homes.

_Bearing Habits of Wild Black Walnut_--Looking forward to a fuller
utilization of the wild black walnut crop, the bearing habits of the
black walnut tree is being investigated. Four-year records are now
available on tree growth, nut yield, and nut quality of sample trees
located throughout the Tennessee Valley. For 121 trees, with a range in
diameter from 4 to 28 inches total dry nut yield, in pounds, averaged as
follows: 1940, 31; 1941, 24; 1942, 38; 1943, 29. There is some evidence
of alternate bearing, with a heavy crop followed by a very light crop.
How much larger nut crop a larger tree is expected to bear was found to
increase on an average trend from 0 pounds of filled nuts for a tree of
4-inch diameter to 65 pounds for a 24-inch tree. Judged on the basis of
nut quality, only one of the sample trees compared favorably with
standard propagated varieties of black walnut. Filled nuts on the
average, amounted to 83 percent of total nut crop weight, and had a
total kernel percentage of 21. Recovery of marketable kernels averaged
17 percent of total nut weight. In order to learn still more about the
bearing habits of the black walnut, records on all sample trees will be
carried on for two more years.

_Macedonia Black Walnut_--A sample of black walnuts from a tree growing
on the home place of Mr. N. U. Turpen at the Macedonia Community at
Clarksville, Georgia, were sent to us for evaluation in 1939. The nuts
were thought to be two years old--from the 1937 crop. When tested, the
kernel content averaged about 40 percent--the highest on record for a
black walnut. The tree, supposed to be the one which bore the nuts we
tested, had not borne any appr