oducing a variety. And so the staff at the college, as soon, as the
show is over, goes out and locates each of these trees individually and
puts a tag on it. We visit each of those trees a sufficient number of
times during the year to properly evaluate the tree.

The things that we are looking for, of course, are productiveness,
freedom from disease and other characteristics of that type. If, after
five years of observation, the tree characteristics are satisfactory,
then the nut will be certified as worthy of propagation.

We are getting some place with this program, as evidenced by the data on
last year's cracking contest. Normal seedling pecans yield about 33 per
cent kernel to the packing plant. In last year's contest, as I say,
there were over 200 entries, and I was just looking to see what the low
was. I really haven't paid enough attention. The lowest entry apparently
was about 33 per cent, and the highest entry was 59 per cent kernel.
Over 30 of these seedling nuts yielded better than 50 per cent kernel,
and that is better than most popular varieties.

These nuts are relatively small. The cracker doesn't care how small they
are, he wants a nut that handles well in the cracker, a nut that is the
shape of a football. A miniature football is an ideal cracking type of
nut. The cracking docks come together from the ends. We cannot use a
round nut. About two-thirds of these good nuts which yielded over 50 per
cent kernel were so round that the machinery in cracking would not place
the docks on the ends, but they were apt to hit anyplace. So they had to
be discounted.

It is quite a job to evaluate these nuts. We have been arbitrary about
it. We haven't developed any scoring system, because there are so many
variable factors that it seems to be almost impossible to do so. In our
general plan of operation in the state we expect this native grove
improvement program that I described to continue, and as the trees get
larger the growers will topwork sprouts which develop from the trees
which have been removed so that the thing goes on and on with a constant
improvement in the quality of the nut.

We also have many, many acres of nuts being propagated by topworking to
varieties rather than by letting the seedling continue to produce. That
is the reason why we are so much interested in getting a better type of
pecan.

One man who makes it a commercial practice puts on thousands of scions
every year. We in Oklahoma can'