5. That we express the thanks of the Association to those members and others who have enriched this meeting by their interesting exhibits.
6. That the following letter be sent from this Association to the,--
Secretary of Agriculture, Persons in authority in the United States Bureau of Plant Industry, The Presidents of Agricultural Colleges, The Directors of Agricultural Experiment Stations, And leading Teachers in Agriculture Colleges.
The Northern Nut Growers' Association, by resolution passed at its third annual meeting, held at Lancaster, Pa., in December 1912, calls your attention to the importance of, and need for, the breeding of new types of crop yielding trees. We now have the possibility of a new, but as yet little developed, agriculture which may (A) nearly double our food supply and also (B) serve as the greatest factor in the conservation of our resources.
(A) Our agriculture at the present time depends chiefly upon the grains which were improved by selection in pre-historic times, because they were annuals and quick yielders. The heavy yielding plants, the engines of nature, are the trees, which have in most cases remained unimproved and largely unused until the present time because of the slowness of their generations and the absence of knowledge concerning plant breeding.
We now know something about plant breeding, and its possibilities as applied to the crop yielding trees seem to be enormous. They certainly warrant immediate and widespread effort at plant breeding. A member of this Association has shown that the chinquapin can be crossed with the oak; that all the walnuts freely hybridize with each other and with the open bud hickories, a class which includes the toothsome and profitable pecan. There is in California a tree which is considered to be a cross between the native walnut and the live oak. The Mendelian Law in connection with past achievements in plant breeding, and the experiments of Loeb in crossing the sea urchin and the star fish are profoundly suggestive.
The possibilities of plant breeding as applied to crop yielding trees seem to be enormous. They certainly warrant immediate and widespread effort toward the creation of useful strains which may become the basis of a new agriculture yielding food for both man and the domestic animals.