Thus, briefly, has been the separate history of the principal nuts of this country. Collectively, the history of American nut culture has been as follows: Nuts from foreign countries which have been under cultivation for centuries have been more inviting than have the native and undeveloped species, and so have received the major portion of attention in America. Then too, human nature has shown itself in the greater interest taken by nut planters in foreign nuts instead of those near at hand. It is in sections remote from their place of origin that many of the leading nuts have attained their greatest degree of perfection. Thus, the average pecan of the Atlantic Coast is distinctly superior to that of the western Gulf; the Persian walnut scarcely known in Persia is best known in France and in southern California. Progress has been slow and not concerted. Seedling trees have been planted under the firm conviction that they would come true, or because methods of propagation other than by seedage were not understood. The Persian walnut orchards of California from which today the bulk of the production is being realized, are of seedling trees. However, the Californians have learned their lesson and today are replacing their orchards with budded stock as rapidly as possible. They have found that while the Persian walnut, which for centuries has been grown from seed, will reproduce itself fairly true to type, it does not repeat true to variety. Every tree, no matter how carefully its parentage may have been guarded, is unlike any other. The seedlings differ in traits of vigor, hardiness, susceptibility to disease, time of beginning to bear, productiveness, and longevity, and the nuts vary in size, form, thickness of shell, ease of cracking, and in kernel characteristics. The people of California have also found that in many ways, Persian walnut trees on their own roots are less desirable than are those budded or grafted on the roots of some black walnut. The earliest pecan planters likewise set seedling trees, partly because no others were available, but more largely because of a supposition that such seedlings would come true. Later on, planters chose grafted trees of large varieties, irrespective of others' merits or demerits. Today, the orchards of both seedling trees and illy-selected varieties are being topworked at great expense of time, labor, and money. In the northern and eastern part of the United States, the situation until very recently has been one of practical standstill. Efforts with foreign nuts have resulted in our being but little ahead of the starting point of a couple of centuries ago. The great majority of the Persian walnut, chestnut, and hazel trees which have been tried have failed us; some have even brought fatal or near-fatal diseases to us.