Mr. Kearney ought to be here tonight and Mr. Swingle and Dr. Rixford. These three men have given more attention to the pistache than I have. Mr. Kearney was studying the date palm industry of Southern Tunis and in connection with it he made a study of the pistache industry of the desert region of the coast of Tunis. This picture represents an Arab standing beside an old pistache tree that probably is forty or fifty years of age. It represents the pistache in its winter dress. They are deciduous trees. They plant one male tree to about twenty females. We have had a great real of difficulty in propagating these pistache trees. We have five different species of stock on which to grow them, and we ought to learn all the best varieties in the world. But unfortunately some of the best varieties in Sicily are infested with a moth which lays its eggs in the twigs just below the leaf scar and it is impossible for the entomologist to detect these eggs without destroying the buds. That apparently trivial circumstance has made it impossible for us to get these cuttings in from Sicily without sending a trained horticulturist there for them. We never have had the money to send a man there who could do it, a man who had had the necessary experience. As a consequence we have not as big a collection of these pistache varieties as we ought to have.
These men in the photograph are getting the scions for Mr. Kearney, and I am glad to say that these particular scions which they cut are now growing in California. Mr. Kearney also on this same trip visited the Duke de Bronte estate on the slopes of Mount Etna. It was an estate bequeathed by the King of Italy to Lord Nelson, who was made the Duke de Bronte and it is still the property of the Nelson family. Mr. Beck, who was the manager for this estate and with whom we have had correspondence for nearly 18 years, gave us perhaps more information than we have gotten from any other foreign source on the cultivation of the pistache. The Trabonella, which was one of the best commercial varieties, came from the Bronte estate on the slopes of Mount Etna, where pistache growing is a paying industry. In Europe the nuts are very largely used, outside of the Mediterranean region for making the pistache ice cream because of the green color in the seed itself, and in the Mediterranean region both the yellow and green varieties as we are coming to use them in this country, as table nuts. The highest price is paid for the green pistache nuts which are used in ice creams and confectioneries. Here are two Sicilian horticulturists, one of them holding a bundle of bud sticks. This Trabonella variety is now growing in America. We have collected pistache nuts from many parts of the world. A very interesting man by the name of Jewett who became acquainted with the late Ameer of Afghanistan procured for us the Afghanistan pistache. I got in correspondence with him through the Consul in Calcutta. Through a mistake made in sending some of this correspondence direct instead of to Calcutta it nearly cost him his life. I did not know the conditions there and asked Jewett in my letter what the possibilities were of sending an Agricultural explorer there. The letter fell into the hands of the Ameer and aroused his suspicions. Jewett was one of the two English speaking persons at that time in the country. One Sunday morning my door bell rang, and Jewett came to my house in Connecticut Avenue with two big saddle bags filled with seed sent by the Ameer. This collection of pistache seeds with its Afghanistan label composed part of the collection of seeds. Very few of the seeds grew however and the seedlings, which like many nut trees do not come true to seed, have not produced any varieties of particular value.