rmers, at least it should supplement
it. The search for improved beechnuts evidently has more different kinds
of difficulties than the search for any other nut and considerable
thought on the matter leads me to suggest that a committee be appointed
to study the nut and to seek large fruited specimens especially to look
into methods for getting them and report to the association a year
hence, said committee to finance itself.

This suggestion is made because it is believed that efforts made in
Europe to find a large fruited beech will be more immediately productive
of results than in America for the reasons noted above. Even if the
committee consists of but one man correspondence abroad would be better
carried on in the name of a committee of the association than in the
name of an individual and it is believed would be more productive of
results.

THE 1929 CONTEST

_By Willard G. Bixby, Baldwin, New York_

This has at last been finished. It is a memorable achievement in many
ways. It has taken much longer to award the prizes than at any previous
contest, which is a matter of deep regret to me. But, if we except the
shagbark hickories and the beechnuts, the value of the nuts is so far
ahead of those received in any other contest as to make the results of
all previous contests commonplace in comparison.

The highest award for black walnuts in the 1926 contest was for the
Stambaugh 63 points, which recalculated using the present constants
would be 62 points, while all the 10 prize winners in the 1929 contest
were awarded more points than 62, the nut taking the tenth prize being
awarded two points more or 64 and the nut taking first prize being
awarded 19 points more or 81, the difference being largely in generally
superior cracking quality of the 1929 nuts.

The highest awards for butternuts, in print and readily referred to, are
in the 1919 report where the butternut taking first prize was awarded 67
points, which after recalculation with present constants would be 65
points, and there were nine prizes awarded this year where the score was
higher than 65.

The shagbark hickories were disappointing, none equalling several of the
best ones reported in the 1919 contest. This is laid to the general poor
quality of the shagbark hickory nuts in 1929. One observing contestant
sent in nuts from the 1928 crop, as well as nuts of the 1929 crop, to
show us how much better they were normally than were those of the 1929