MR. MCCOY: A change in a name like Buttrick to Illinois is a good one. Any name like this that tells by itself the fact that the nut is from the North is worth a lot to the people who want to sell pecan trees, and to the people who want to eat pecans, and can buy them reasonably. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I move that a special committee be appointed to consider changing the names of these pecans and giving them names showing that they are northern nuts.
THE PRESIDENT: It has been moved and seconded that a committee be appointed to consider the matter of changing the names of some of the pecans.
A MEMBER: Isn't there a Vincennes in Europe?
THE PRESIDENT: There might possibly be more suggestions, and we should be glad to hear from anyone along this line.
MR. REED: I agree with Professor Smith in part of his remarks. We have a walnut called the Ontario from Greene County, Michigan. If we should call it Michigan that would indicate where it came from. But it is widely known now as the Ontario, and would it be best to change its name, even though it comes from Michigan?
MR. MCCOY: Wouldn't it have been better to have called it Michigan to start with?
MR. MCCOY: We have pursued these things for many years and we have made some misnomers in naming them. I think it's a good idea to change them.
MR. POTTER: I am very much pleased with the idea Professor Smith has advanced for renaming these trees. They don't mean anything now as he says, and I think it would be a great forward stride for this association to rename these trees.
MR. SIMPSON: I think Professor Smith's idea is a move in the right direction. We were the first people that propagated any of these northern varieties, and my idea is to call that variety Indiana, for the very reason he mentions here, that it distinguishes it as a northern variety. I think his suggestion ought to be followed out as far as it is possible. At least with several varieties.
THE PRESIDENT: The chair takes the opportunity of saying that the suggestion meets his most hearty approval. I have taken up pages of letters in writing to people about nuts, and explaining to them that the nursery from which they bought had nothing to do with the hardiness of the tree, that it was the location of the parent tree that determined this. I was struck by an advertisement last year which said, "buy them from the nursery furthest north." That hasn't a thing in the world to do with it. You may take some of this very wood we have here and propagate it on the McKenzie River, or the Yukon, and say you are selling trees propagated in Alaska, but the hardiness all depends on where the parent tree is. These parent trees have been placed there by nature, and when we distribute them we will distribute what nature has put into the parent tree. These trees are there because they have withstood all the climatic conditions, and nothing would be of more value, it appears to me, than to adopt the suggestion for renaming them. In the first place many of these trees are named for men not entitled to have them named for them. Many of those who own these trees do not know their value and object to anyone that knows anything about a nut tree going in and getting bud wood, and are contrary and mean about it. It is very rare that the importance of these seedling pecans is known to their owners, and they are not entitled to any consideration themselves. They are generally discovered by some outsider who had to beg to go in and get a stick of bud wood. Is there any further discussion?