Northern Nut Growers Association, Report Of The Proceedings At The Tenth Annual Meeting.: Battle Creek, Michigan, December 9 and 10, 1919
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association, Report Of The Proceedings At The Tenth Annual Meeting.: Battle Creek, Michigan, December 9 and 10, 1919
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
Concerning Latin nomenclature, we have further troubles for settlement.
Hicoria is the oldest generic name and naturally should have priority
but the Vienna Congress of Botanists adopted Carya. So far so good (or
bad). Now comes our trouble in giving specific and varietal names. The
binomial is clearly applicable enough for species, Carya pecan, for
example, but when we come to varieties of the pecan there are two kinds
of varieties to be considered, those by environment and those by
hybridization. In cases of natural variation we are still within
accepted resources in nomenclature by saying for example, Carya pecan,
var, Stuartii. When naming hybrid varieties, however, I would suggest
that in advance of the abbreviation "var", we place the abbreviation
"hyb." thus reading for Brown's pecan, "Carya pecan, hyb. var. Brownii,"
instead of "Carya Brownii," which latter binomial would throw it among
the species. In view of the fact that we are to have in the future
hundreds of named hybrids, it seems to me that we must adopt some such
definite method for convenience promptly. This method of naming, relates
to convenience and is applied to the most evident parent. As a matter of
fact, in horticultural circles we are doing precisely that sort of
thing, speaking, for example, of "Brown's pecan" meaning a nut which we
recognize as being a hybrid, brought to attention by Brown but with the
pecan as parent most strongly in evidence.
When I was a boy, the only hickory nuts of any sort available, were
those collected from wild trees. The popular boy was one who knew of
some trees which furnished the best nuts and who did not keep the news
to himself. The squirrels knew the best nuts as well as the boys did and
they would go past many hickory trees along fences and groves in order
to congregate in the ones which had the nuts with the thinnest shells
and plumpest meats of best quality. In the early morning hours I have
seen several squirrels in one particularly good hickory nut tree and not
a single squirrel in a tree completely filled with nuts, though its
branches touches those of the first one. Men are quite as intelligent
as squirrels in some respects. Here and there attempts were made at
propagating fine hickory trees of various species by planting nuts. It
was not generally known at that time that the hickories were so
thoroughly crossed like the apples, that they would not reproduce true
to type from seed. Attempts were then made at grafting which were mostly
failures for many years. We are now on the verge of a great development
in hybridization or crossing of choice kinds of hickories and in
determining upon which stocks the different kinds of selected hickories
may be grown to best advantage. Hybrids between varieties of hickories
occur frequently in nature and hybrids between species of hickories
occur occasionally. A number of these accidental hybrids have been
discovered and some of them are now being propagated. For the most part
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