Northern Nut Growers Association FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING AUGUST 20 AND 21, 1914 Evansville, Indiana

The fifth annual meeting of the Northern Nut Growers Association was held in the Evansville Business Association Hall at Evansville, Indiana, beginning August 20, 1914, at 10 A. M., President Littlepage presiding.

The President: The fifth annual meeting of the Northern Nut Growers Association will now come to order, and I have the pleasure of introducing to you Dr. Worsham who represents the Mayor of Evansville.

Dr. Worsham: Ladies and Gentlemen of the Northern Nut Growers Association:

Some men are born to greatness and others have it thrust upon them. I stand in the position this morning of a man that has had his greatness thrust upon him. The secretary of the Evansville Business Association, who frequently takes liberties with me, told me a few minutes ago that, in the absence of our Mayor, I was to welcome you.

We extend to you a most cordial welcome to our thriving city. We are always glad to have associations of this kind meet with us, because they bring to us new ideas and new thoughts.

As I looked upon those nuts this morning my mind returned to the time when I was a boy, when my father, although a splendid business man who took advantage of most of the opportunities that presented themselves to him, neglected one of the best he had in selling one hundred and twenty-five acres of land across the Ohio River here, upon which there grow a number of native pecans. The only time we ever had any pecans from that place was when we got a German over there, direct from Germany. He couldn't speak a word of the English language but my father said to him, "Keep the boys out and get some pecans." He went down there with a dog and a gun and we got more nuts that year than ever before or since.

This city has the distinction, as I have learned since I came into the hall, of being the center of the nut growing district of the northwest. Another honor that our splendid city has. As you know we are here in the largest hardwood lumber market in the world; we have the cheapest and best coal of any place in the world; we have the greatest river facilities of any city along the Ohio River; we have six main arteries of railroad into our city, so it is easy to manufacture, easy to ship and easy to dispose of the products of our business in this grand, beautiful and well situated city.

Now gentlemen, remember that Dr. Worsham's telephone is 213, that I am representing the Mayor and Business Men's Association, and that we are perfectly delighted to have you with us. I hope you will have a good time. I thank you.

The President: Dr. Robert T. Morris will respond first to Dr. Worsham and afterwards Mr. Potter.

Dr. Morris: Mr. Chairman, Representatives of the Business Men's Association, Ladies and Gentlemen: In Chicago, I met an Englishman who told me he was going to "Hevansville." I did not know just where he meant but after hearing Dr. Worsham's speech, I understand.

This is no doubt one of the coming cities of the world. You have here the field that was fought for by the early settlers and the Indians, and the field that is to be the scene of many wars in days to come.

In the days to come, perhaps a thousand years from now, there may be four or five people to the acre living under conditions of intensive cultivation. This is just the sort of land that will support a population to the best advantage, and you have here conditions suitable for the crop that is to be the crop of the future. People do not fully utilize nature's resources until there is need for doing so. We have depended upon the cereals and the soft fruits and things of that sort, just as the early Indian depended upon the deer and the beaver. The time came when his beaver and his deer disappeared. We, like the Indian, take up first the development of simplest things in plant life. Later, under intensive cultivation, we shall be enabled to support a very much larger population on fewer acres.

We find that nuts contain starch and proteids in such proportion that they will fairly well take the place of meats and of other starches.

Now, this is not an opinion which is individual alone, but is the conclusion of authorities after examination of data. Chemical examination of nuts has been made by our Department of Agriculture at Washington and by chemists elsewhere. The nut crop, then, is to be perhaps the staple food crop for the people of the United States one thousand years from now, when we are depending upon methods of intensive cultivation for the annual plants.

It is true, of course, that three thousand years before Christ, the Emperor Yu developed in China a system of agriculture that is better than any European or American system today both as to production and transportation—perhaps including distribution. At the present time China is supporting a larger population to the acre than any other country.

All this comes to mind in response to the address of welcome by Dr. Worsham. Here at this point of our United States, there is already a center of the new movement for the development of the great future food supply of the world, a nut nursery center. Here we find also another feature of great consequence from the economic and politic side. We find honest nurserymen. That is a very important matter. As nations advance in culture the moral side develops, and as the ethical side develops there will be better representatives in the trades and in all callings. The nursery business is near to nature and for that reason simple people have assumed that nurserymen were nearly as white as snow. Those of us who have had some experience with them, know what it means to find honest ones. We deeply appreciate the fact that in this part of the country honest nurserymen are making a name for themselves and for America.

I know Evansville not only in this way that I have been speaking of but also in a professional way because of its doctors. There are two or three or four of the Evansville doctors—you do not know that as members of this Association, but I know it as a member of our great profession—who have placed Evansville upon the map. This city is best known throughout the United States in the medical profession because of some three or four Evansville doctors of the present and past.

Therefore it is with a double pleasure that I respond to the address of welcome given by Dr. Worsham.

The President: We will now hear from Hon. W. O. Potter of Marion, Illinois.

Mr. Potter: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: This meeting to me is something out of the ordinary. I can remember that when I was a boy I knew every good hickory nut tree in the community where I was raised, but after I left my native heath and went into the practice of law and got into politics, I forgot all about the hickory trees until just a few years ago when, by accident, I picked up a nut journal. I don't know how it came into my possession but I got it and I read some article on the Indiana pecan, and I read an article on the development of nut trees in the south, and I got interested and commenced studying the subject. I wrote to the Department of Agriculture and got some articles on nut culture from Mr. Reed and others and became still more interested.

However, nut culture doesn't mix well with politics or law, and, therefore, it is more or less of a side issue with me. I have gone into nut culture only on a small scale. On my lot in the city of Marion where I live I have set out some pecan trees, and after a hard battle in court all day it is quite a pleasure to get home in the evening and to pull off my coat and to get on some old clothes and go out among my trees. There is nothing better to get one's mind off the daily combat of life.

I was very much impressed with Dr. Worsham's address of welcome and also Dr. Morris's response. I believe that this country is beginning a new era; we are going to experience a metamorphosis. I think we will shed this old shell, take on a new dress and start afresh.

I presume it is here as in Illinois where I was raised. Our farmers came from the south principally, and about all they knew of farming in those early days was to raise corn and some tobacco, but mostly, through our section, corn, and in a few years they corned the land to death. You can go through our country and see old hillsides red with clay and farmers barely eking out an existence. Those people will never be much better off than they are now, but as they pass off and the newer generation comes on, departments of agriculture and horticulture will be organized in the universities, where it has not already been done, and the farmers will be a class of people right up to date. Modern civilization tends to drive the sons back to the farm and that is overdone sometimes. People think they want to go to farming when they don't. We ought not to take up this idea "back to the farm" too largely at once but gradually grow into it. I know what it is to be on the farm and work hard day after day; there is no chance for us under the old conditions; but in higher forms of agriculture or horticulture the American people will find the greatest benefits and pleasures. It gets monotonous for a man who has a profession to stick to that all the time, day in and day out without change, week in and week out, year in and year out, and he gets to driving in a rut. If he will take up a side line it will do him much good. I have gone into nut growing for recreation, not profit, and I think it is an occupation most conducive to a strong mind and a healthy body.

This country is getting to a point where we are going to have more producers. We have too many consumers in this country. We talk about the tariff and whether it raises or lowers the price of articles. That is neither here nor there. The thing that will control the prices of foods is the amount of food produced. As Dr. Morris said awhile ago we don't need so much meat as we used to think we needed nor so many other kinds of foods. All the food elements that keep man alive and his body in a healthy condition are contained in nuts, fruits and things of that character, and this to a great extent will eliminate the need for meats. Meat is getting scarce and high. Beef steaks and pork chops are a great deal higher than they formerly were and some of us who are not making as much money in our professions as we need will have to find something else to take the place of them. It seems to me that the solution of the problem is in the production of nuts. The peanut is being manufactured in a great many ways and we are using them on our tables daily, and it will only be a few years when the pecan will be fixed up in as many different ways.

The hickory nut I think is another great nut of this country and great attention ought to be paid to it. Its culture is still in its infancy. I believe that in a few years the hickory nut and pecan will help solve the food problem.

I would not know how to graft any kind of a tree. What trees I need I buy from some good responsible nurseryman and let him do the work of grafting.

I am glad to be a member of this association, although this is the first meeting I have ever attended. I get a lot of enthusiasm from the other members and I have had lots of information from being a member of this association.

I want to thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for listening to my remarks which I had no thought of making. What I have said has been at random.

Dr. Morris: When I was speaking a minute ago I left out one idea that is clever, and I want to get it in although it belongs to Professor Smith. When we get to the point of intensive cultivation we are to have the two-story farm. We will have the tree which will be the second story and will furnish our meat, and underneath we will have our small crops. In that way we will have a two-story farm.

The President: That is a very good idea, Dr. Morris, and I am glad you got it in. We are very glad to have the remarks by Dr. Morris and Mr. Potter. Mr. Potter has been in the legislature and we are pleased to know that there is one member of a legislature in the United States who does not know how to graft.

Mr. Potter: I am sorry you said that. I wish you had left that out. I was there when Lorimer was elected.

The President: There is nothing that would cure a legislature of grafting quicker than horticulture.

The chair desires to make an announcement of the program. This morning, there will be the usual talks and papers. We will adjourn at 12 o'clock and meet again at 1 o'clock for the afternoon session until 5 o'clock, at which time the members of the Association and visitors are invited by some of the citizens to take an automobile ride to see the city and the different industries, which I am sure we will all be glad to do. This evening at 8 o'clock there will by a lecture by Mr. C. A. Reed of the Department of Agriculture and he will us show one of the best collections of lantern slides in existence. Everybody is invited, whether members of the Association or not, including the ladies and children.

Tomorrow morning at 7:15 we will take the Rockport traction car here, getting off at Sandale, at which place we will be met by wagons and we will go to Enterprise where you will see a great number of seedling pecan trees of all ages. They are bearing, the limbs hanging down close to the ground, and there will be an excellent opportunity to see the nuts on the trees at close range.

A gasoline boat will meet us at Enterprise between 12 and 1 and we will return to Evansville tomorrow evening, via the river, stopping at proper points, and be in session again at 8 o'clock, finishing up the business of the Association with a lecture by Col. C. K. Sober of Pennsylvania, the great chestnut producer. He has a great many lantern slides and will tell you many things of interest. He is one man who is working earnestly and tirelessly to combat the chestnut blight.

The next thing on the program this morning will be the report of the secretary of the Association, Dr. W. C. Deming.

The Secretary: I have the honor to report as follows:

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