By George W. Endicott, Villa Ridge, Ill.

The Boone chestnut and unnamed Boone seedlings, Nos. 4, 6, 7, 8, 22 and 24. Staminate parent of Boone. Chinquapin x Boone; Boone x Rochester; Boone x Ridgeley; Boone x McFarland. Blair, Burrill, best native, Champ Clark, McFarland, President, Ridgeley, Reliance, Rochester, William P. Stark.

C. K. Sober, Lewisburg, Pa.

Paragon chestnuts.

Mrs. Annie E. K. Bidwell, Rancho Chico, Chico, Cal.

American sweet chestnut, Italian chestnut, butternuts, black walnuts, I. X. L. almonds, seedling filbert, Bidwell pecan.

D. H. Hulseman, Lakeside, Wash.

Chelan and Hulseman walnuts.

Fancher Creek Nurseries, Fresno, Cal.

Eureka, Placentia Perfection, Neff's Prolific walnuts.

A. C. Pomeroy, Lockport, N. Y.

Pomeroy walnuts.

C. S. Ridgeway, Lumberton, N. J.

Ridgeway walnut.

E. S. Mayo, Rochester, N. Y.

"Thompson-Avon" walnut. Unnamed seedling.

W. S. Devoe, San Luis Obispo, Cal.

Santa Barbara walnut.

Frank P. Andrus, Almont, Mich.

Unnamed seedling walnut. Butternut.

E. R. Lake, Washington, D. C.

Gingko nut. Pili nuts.

Arlington Farm.

Juglans sieboldiana. Juglans australis, probably from South America. Twenty-three exhibits of almonds from different California growers.

J. G. Rush, West Willow, Pa.

Lancaster, Nebo, Hall, Rush and Kaghazi walnuts, Barcelona filberts, Weiker and La Fevre shellbark hickories.

Prof. V. R. Gardner, Experiment Station, Corvallis, Oregon.

Eleven varieties of filberts.

W. C. Reed & Son, Vincennes, Ind.

Beard, Indiana, Kentucky, Letcher, Luce, Major, Niblack, Posey, and Warrick pecans.

T. P. Littlepage, Boonville, Ind.

Kentucky pecans.

J. F. Jones, Lancaster, Pa.

Lancaster and Holden walnuts, Weiker shellbark and Kirtland shagbark hickories, Barcelona filberts and photographs of the Lancaster tree. Ninety-six exhibits of southern grown pecans by various exhibitors.

WILDER MEDAL FOR EXHIBITION OF NUTS

The American Pomological Society awarded the Northern Nut Growers Association a bronze Wilder Medal for the exhibition of nuts at the fourth annual meeting of the Association at Washington, D. C, November 18 and 19, 1913.

GEORGE W. ENDICOTT—THE BOONE CHESTNUT

E. A. Riehl, Alton, Illinois

George W. Endicott was born in Belmont County, Ohio, July 25, 1837. He joined the Forty-eighth Illinois Infantry in 1861, serving nearly three years, when he was discharged owing to wounds received. Then he went to farming in Wayne County. In 1867 he settled at Villa Ridge, Ill., devoting himself to fruit and vegetable growing, in which he was eminently successful. Mr. Endicott was a man of strong character and a leader in his community. Energetic and up to date in all his operations, he procured and tested all kinds of new fruits as fast as introduced. He died at his home November 14, 1913.

Of the greatest interest to the nut growers of this country was his work of creating the Boone chestnut. About 1888 Mr. Endicott conceived the idea of producing a cross between the American and Japan chestnuts and getting one combining the sweetness of the native with the large size, early ripening and young bearing habits of the Japan. He encountered an obstacle in the fact that the Japan blossomed before the native and it was not until seven years later that he found a native blossoming early enough to make the cross. In the spring of 1895 he carefully hand pollinated some Japan Giant with the pollen of this early flowering native, sacking the same to prevent other pollen reaching them. The seed so produced was planted in the spring of 1896 in rich soil that had been used as a vegetable garden. One of the seeds so planted bore six burs in 1897, eighteen months after planting the seed and has produced crops every year since as follows: 1898, 1 pound of nuts; 1899, 3 pounds of nuts; 1900, 5 pounds of nuts; 1901, 6 pounds of nuts; 1902, 8 pounds of nuts; 1903, 12 pounds of nuts; 1904, 17 pounds of nuts; 1905, 25 pounds of nuts; 1906, 31 pounds of nuts; 1907, 43 pounds of nuts; 1908, 50 pounds of nuts; 1909, 56 pounds of nuts; 1910, 5 pounds of nuts (early bloom killed by late freeze); 1911, 80 pounds of nuts; 1912, 76 pounds of nuts; 1913, 140 pounds of nuts—a grand total of 568 pounds from the time of planting the seed seventeen years ago.

This nut is of very good quality, has large size, ripens early and comes into bearing very early. Has been well tested and proven to be one of the best chestnuts we have. It has but one fault, it is very hard to propagate by either budding or grafting. Mr. Endicott and others have grown many seedlings of Boone, but none are in all respects as good as the parent.

Mr. Endicott did a good work in producing the Boone chestnut and deserves the thanks of the nut growers of this country.

LETTER FROM G. H. CORSAN, TORONTO, CANADA

My place of 15½ acres just west of Toronto, is in a small valley containing sandy, gravelly and clay soils, while the creek bottom land is rich black humus. My efforts are purely experimental and the losses do not worry me as I simply wish to know what will succeed in this district. Peaches and grapes grow on my place.

Last winter I bought twelve Paragon chestnut trees from Colonel Sober. All twelve are alive and looking well and this fourth day of November are just turning color and dropping their leaves. You will probably remember that of the three samples that Colonel Sober displayed at the convention last year I took the walking stick. I had to go to Columbia and other South Carolina points for three weeks afterwards, so that it was well into January before I finally got the "walking stick" planted. Well, it is also alive and has that well-known Paragon form, five fan-shaped shoots above the graft.

I planted seeds from all over the world, in rows, and of ten bushels of black walnuts only five nuts sprouted. On the other hand, every pecan came up. Hickories and English cob nuts behaved a little better than the black walnuts. I slip a little collar of tar paper over each little tree to protect it against field mice, rabbits and ground hogs. Red squirrels trouble me the least of all the pests as I cannot keep them out of my double section wire rat trap, and the pet stock men give my boys 30 cents apiece for them.

I also bought a dozen Pomeroy walnuts last winter for experiment. They are all alive but the extraordinary late and early frosts were hard on them and nipped them down three inches from the top where they again sprouted out. This occurred to all but one tree which positively refused to take any notice of either the late or the early frost. I consider this one tree worth many times the money I paid for the dozen.

My experiments are only two years old but I will mention that my English filberts or Kentish cob nuts are doing well, also my Battle Creek persimmon seedlings that I planted in an exposed position two years ago.

Seeds from those Battle Creek persimmon trees can be procured from Dr. J. H. Kellogg by writing him. They are the two most northern persimmon trees which I have discovered so far. The fruit is good to the taste and the trees have lived through terribly cold winters. I mention this as many of you are fruit growers also and want to get persimmon stock in order to graft the Japanese persimmon on. The female tree every second year is loaded to the point of breakage and should do well for stock.

Speaking about procuring seeds from dealers, I can get here and there for one cent as much as I have to pay the dealer a dollar for. For instance, while passing through Phoebus, Va., I asked a lady what she wanted for Juglans sieboldiana and she said 5 cents a quart or 35 cents a peck. She only got 16 bushels from a 20 year-old tree! They were bigger and better specimens than I got from Japan at about five nuts for one dollar, postage extra.

Then I wrote to a gentleman who had a small tree of Juglans cordiformis in Ontario and he said that he only had a bushel which he was expressing to me and to send him a dollar! Think, and the Japs sent me three nuts for one dollar!! A lady at Niagara Falls, Ontario, told me that she had a little tree of J. sieboldiana so I asked her the price and she sent me half a bushel and said to pay the express charges which were a quarter!

And it is the same way with these forest seed merchants, they send me for dollars the seeds of pinus edulis and pinus Koriensis that it would take a powerful microscope to discern, and I afterwards bought of a fruit merchant in Milwaukee a big glassful for a nickel!

Roadside planting is a failure, for, besides rodents little and big, there are all kinds of animals from sheep to horses to destroy them, so that I have to plant all my trees at least four feet within my fence line.

Juglans Mandshurica seed I find impossible to procure so far. There are two magnificent trees in Toronto planted by an old man who is dead now. These trees show no sign of ever having been winter killed and are 13 and 19 feet high but have not fruited yet. The leaves are very long and the trees resemble the stag horn sumach, except that they are distinctly Juglans in appearance; but the growth of the year's shoots is thick and long like a coppice growth.

LETTER FROM W. C. REED, VINCENNES, INDIANA

The Indiana pecan tree bore a splendid crop of about 3½ bushels. The Busseron also had a good crop on all the old wood and some on the new wood. The Busseron is just recovering from a severe cutting back by the owner and should be in shape to give a good crop next year. Other pecans in the vicinity bore a very light crop.

The Niblack bore only a few nuts this year. Butterick had a very good crop for an off year, some five bushels as reported to me, and they were well filled. This tree is very large, 4½ feet in diameter, 90 foot spread, located near Grayville, Ill.

The writer and my son, M. P. Reed, have top worked quite a number of large black walnuts, ranging from 3 to 9 inches in diameter. They were cut back last spring and budded in the new growth this summer, setting from 20 to 40 buds in some of the trees. Buds of the Hall, Pomeroy and Rush have taken well and look very promising. Of other varieties only a limited number have taken. We will top work several large trees this coming summer and should get results soon from these.

Pecans in the nursery have made a very satisfactory growth. The stand of buds was only fair, in some cases poor. We still have a limited number of Indiana and Busseron trees but the supply of other kinds is exhausted for this year.

We have planted 600 pounds of pecans and 50 bushels of walnuts and with the seedlings we have on hand in nursery hope to have plenty of stock to work in the future.

We had a splendid stand of grafts of the Major pecan the past spring and some of these made 4 feet of growth and calipered ¾inch, for grafts set May 1st.