ountries which have been under
cultivation for centuries have been more inviting than have the native
and undeveloped species, and so have received the major portion of
attention in America. Then too, human nature has shown itself in the
greater interest taken by nut planters in foreign nuts instead of those
near at hand. It is in sections remote from their place of origin that
many of the leading nuts have attained their greatest degree of
perfection. Thus, the average pecan of the Atlantic Coast is distinctly
superior to that of the western Gulf; the Persian walnut scarcely known
in Persia is best known in France and in southern California.

Progress has been slow and not concerted. Seedling trees have been
planted under the firm conviction that they would come true, or because
methods of propagation other than by seedage were not understood.

The Persian walnut orchards of California from which today the bulk of
the production is being realized, are of seedling trees. However, the
Californians have learned their lesson and today are replacing their
orchards with budded stock as rapidly as possible. They have found that
while the Persian walnut, which for centuries has been grown from seed,
will reproduce itself fairly true to type, it does not repeat true to
variety. Every tree, no matter how carefully its parentage may have been
guarded, is unlike any other. The seedlings differ in traits of vigor,
hardiness, susceptibility to disease, time of beginning to bear,
productiveness, and longevity, and the nuts vary in size, form,
thickness of shell, ease of cracking, and in kernel characteristics.

The people of California have also found that in many ways, Persian
walnut trees on their own roots are less desirable than are those budded
or grafted on the roots of some black walnut.

The earliest pecan planters likewise set seedling trees, partly because
no others were available, but more largely because of a supposition that
such seedlings would come true. Later on, planters chose grafted trees
of large varieties, irrespective of others' merits or demerits. Today,
the orchards of both seedling trees and illy-selected varieties are
being topworked at great expense of time, labor, and money.

In the northern and eastern part of the United States, the situation
until very recently has been one of practical standstill. Efforts with
foreign nuts have resulted in our being but little ahead of the starting
point of a couple