DR. MORRIS: It is good for cooking. It is the same as the Marron.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: They are the Indiana hazels, and this is an European filbert.
The convention was called to order by the President, Mr. Linton, at 8 o'clock.
THE PRESIDENT: The presentation of the next speaker will be made by Mr. Littlepage.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I want to take just one or two minutes in introducing Mr. Reed, the next speaker on the program. The Department of Agriculture, as we all know, is an aggregation of many of the very brightest men in this country. Those of us who are here in Washington know that at times it is sadly in need of organization. It is perfectly apparent to anybody who has judgment enough to make observations that there is a great deal of very valuable material down there going to waste for the lack of organization. Perhaps it will always be so. I do not know. Institutions are not perfect because the individuals constituting these institutions are not perfect. The Department of Agriculture is, taken as a whole, a most wonderful institution. I do wish, however, that the Department officials would not always wait until they think they know exactly all the facts about a thing before they publish it. I sometimes wish they had enough nerve to say: "Now, this is what we found out today. We may change our minds tomorrow and if we do we will tell you so," the same as any other honest citizen. Why in the world they collect all the data they do, file it away day after day, month after month and year after year, and publish it after it is of no use to anyone on this earth, I never could figure out! I know it is a difficult problem because if the Department of Agriculture should say today that Winesap apples grow beautifully on Maryland hills some fellow would promptly capitalize that and go to selling the Maryland hills, the water underneath, the air above them and everything around them for the modest sum of ten times what it was worth. So that is the other side of it. It makes it necessary for the Department of Agriculture, of course, to be cautious. I know, however, that you all think as I do because you have said so to me but you do not all have the nerve to get up here and say as I do that the Department of Agriculture ought to give us more of these data; that they ought to give it to us for what it is worth today and in this lifetime, leaving it to us to have a little common sense to know that what they say must be taken as they say it. However, I did not get up here to say all of those things. My purpose is to introduce the speaker.