Brothers, Rochester, N. Y. I am
interested in nut-culture. I have inquired of Glen Brothers if the
Kentish Cob would thrive there. They assure me it will. If there is a
chance to make a success of nuts, I would turn my time and thought to
the raising of walnuts and Kentish cobs and filberts. What would you
advise? If you cannot give me the desired information, kindly give me
directions to the one who can. I was brought up among the walnuts and
filberts and cob-nuts in the County of Kent, England, and now my
thoughts are turning to the delights of earlier days and I intend coming
to the Shenandoah Valley in the near future and making my home there....

THE SECRETARY'S REPLY

GEORGETOWN, CONN., November 13, 1914.

MY DEAR MR. ----:

It gives me great pleasure to reply as well as I am able to your letter
of November 10th. You are in the position of many thoughtful men of the
present day in craving the peace and delight of a life that is nearer to
nature. You have also a small tract of land in a favored part of our
country, and you have been led to believe, by the statements that you
have run across in chance sources, that the returns from nut growing may
enable you to attain your ambition.

Our president has a place at Roundhill, Va., not very many miles from
yours. He is a professor of something like "Efficiency" in the
University of Pennsylvania. He is young, aggressive and very efficient
himself. His father was, and he himself is, an orchardist and fruit
grower. Both he and I have been for some years working at the problems
of nut growing. But it is only this year that we seem to have overcome
the difficulties of grafting and budding nut trees. We have the greatest
faith in the future success of nut growing, but we do not know how long
it will be before we shall know just what varieties of nuts to plant
ourselves, least of all to advise others to plant, with any certainty of
success. For the man, however, who realizes that nut growing in the
North is still in the experimental stage, we have no end of information
and advice.

The information you have had from interested sources is misleading.
Probably you would not live long enough to get satisfactory results from
the seedling trees you might plant, even if such results ever came. To
get reasonably prompt and certain results from nut trees it is necessary
to grow such trees grafted or budded from trees of known good bearing
record, just as the same th