Had the methods used been those in use for some time and whose correctness had been proven, these differences would have caused little concern, but inasmuch as the methods for measuring most of the nut characteristics were used for the first time in 1918, and their had been devised by me, I could not help feeling that there was a possibility of the discrepancies being due to imperfections in methods for, at first, it would seem likely that nuts borne by a given tree one year would be like those borne the next year. I considered therefore that it was for me to prove beyond question that the methods used were sound and that the differences noted were real. The amount of time needed to do this at a period when my time was well occupied with other things has been more than I wish it had been. While many efforts were made to see if there were imperfections in the methods used for measuring the various characteristics, no such imperfections were found, and, for a considerable period, all efforts made to explain the differences in tests made on nuts borne by the same trees in different years were unproductive of results. Finally the matter was settled to my satisfaction as is noted in the next paragraph. The Clark hickory received 79 points last year when it took the first prize. It tested out 11 points less this year when first tested which put it entirely out of the prize winning class. Repetition of this year's tests gave results agreeing fairly well with the first ones made but still not all comparable to those of last year. This was decidedly disconcerting when one of the principal results expected of the adoption of methods of measuring nut characteristics was the possibility of testing a given nut now and several months hence and obtaining the same verdict. After much work designed to see if the methods of measuring nut characteristics were faulty and nothing wrong had been found with them, a visit was made to the tree. Mr. Clark said that it bore a good crop every other year and but few nuts in the intervening years, and that the nuts were much better the years when a good crop was borne than they were in the other years. This was interesting information but I could not help realizing the difficulty of carrying in one's mind, from one year to the next, the merits of hickory nuts, and felt that, unless the matter could be proven, I had not as yet done very much to solve the problem at hand. Mr. Clark, however, gave me practically all the nuts of the 1919 crop which he had and I returned feeling that this trip had not done much to solve the problem as to why the tests on the 1918 nuts and 1919 nuts should be so different. Very careful examination was made of the few Clark hickory nuts remaining in my possession of the 1918 crop and they were compared with those of the 1919 crop. Slight differences in shape were noted and finally one nut was found seemingly just like the nuts that won the prize in 1918. When this nut was tested it gave