ne in any way except by passing around samples. It will be
noted from the slip that the nuts run very close indeed and it is very
probable that another year these nuts would not show exactly the same
results for it has been clearly shown that nuts vary greatly from year
to year. There are other characteristics of hickory nuts which are of
great importance which are not shown in the annual contests. These are
the bearing records of the tree, its ability to stand various diseases
and most of all how it will work out when grown in orchard form. This
can only be told by experience. From the fact that, in the 1919 contest,
of the ten varieties of the experimentally propagated hickories there
was only a difference of five points between the highest and the lowest,
it shows that the merit of each nut is sufficient so that all of these
should be tested out in orchard form. In other words we should not for
example select the Vest and Manahan as the best that we have and
propagate them to the exclusion of the others. It is probable that there
will be great differences in the orchard behavior of these various
hickories shown as this is done and that then we shall be able to select
the most desirable varieties. Some tests made recently on nine standard
southern pecans the Schley, Burkett, Moore, Alley, Delmas, Moneymaker,
Pabst, Stuart and Vandeman show a great difference between the highest
and lowest in the number of points awarded, this difference being 10
points as against 5 in the cast of the hickories. The Hatch bitternut
and Stanley shellbark noted on this slip are here not because it is
believed that, as market nuts, they will compare with the first ten
mentioned but because they are the best nuts we now have which are not
shagbarks or of which the shagbark is not one parent. It is believed
that those nuts will be valuable for hybridizing purposes.

There is one matter suggested by the slip on which I will touch although
it is not properly within the scope of the subject set for this paper
and that is the possibilities of hickory breeding. Of the ten hickories
noted on the slip as receiving 70 to 75 points, four, it is agreed, are
hybrids. The examination which I have made of the others leads me to
believe that more of them are, but four out of ten with the possibility
of more is sufficient to cause us to take notice. There are some nine
hickory species native in the north eastern United States and they
hybridize to a consid