Concerning Latin nomenclature, we have further troubles for settlement. Hicoria is the oldest generic name and naturally should have priority but the Vienna Congress of Botanists adopted Carya. So far so good (or bad). Now comes our trouble in giving specific and varietal names. The binomial is clearly applicable enough for species, Carya pecan, for example, but when we come to varieties of the pecan there are two kinds of varieties to be considered, those by environment and those by hybridization. In cases of natural variation we are still within accepted resources in nomenclature by saying for example, Carya pecan, var, Stuartii. When naming hybrid varieties, however, I would suggest that in advance of the abbreviation "var", we place the abbreviation "hyb." thus reading for Brown's pecan, "Carya pecan, hyb. var. Brownii," instead of "Carya Brownii," which latter binomial would throw it among the species. In view of the fact that we are to have in the future hundreds of named hybrids, it seems to me that we must adopt some such definite method for convenience promptly. This method of naming, relates to convenience and is applied to the most evident parent. As a matter of fact, in horticultural circles we are doing precisely that sort of thing, speaking, for example, of "Brown's pecan" meaning a nut which we recognize as being a hybrid, brought to attention by Brown but with the pecan as parent most strongly in evidence.
When I was a boy, the only hickory nuts of any sort available, were those collected from wild trees. The popular boy was one who knew of some trees which furnished the best nuts and who did not keep the news to himself. The squirrels knew the best nuts as well as the boys did and they would go past many hickory trees along fences and groves in order to congregate in the ones which had the nuts with the thinnest shells and plumpest meats of best quality. In the early morning hours I have seen several squirrels in one particularly good hickory nut tree and not a single squirrel in a tree completely filled with nuts, though its branches touches those of the first one. Men are quite as intelligent as squirrels in some respects. Here and there attempts were made at propagating fine hickory trees of various species by planting nuts. It was not generally known at that time that the hickories were so thoroughly crossed like the apples, that they would not reproduce true to type from seed. Attempts were then made at grafting which were mostly failures for many years. We are now on the verge of a great development in hybridization or crossing of choice kinds of hickories and in determining upon which stocks the different kinds of selected hickories may be grown to best advantage. Hybrids between varieties of hickories occur frequently in nature and hybrids between species of hickories occur occasionally. A number of these accidental hybrids have been discovered and some of them are now being propagated. For the most part they do not represent the best quality of the best parent but it is a notable fact that the bitterness of kinds with the bitter pellicle appears to be a recessive character and disappears usually from hybrids between species in which one parent has a bitter nut. Unfortunately, the finer extractive which give character to the nut of the better parent are prone to disappear also. This is in line with our experience in mixing of characters along Mendelian lines. Given a sufficient number of hybrids and we shall have here and there one with spectacular characteristics of special value.