The Chairman: We will now proceed with the regular order of business. As my paper happens to be placed first on the list, through the methods of the Secretary, I will ask Mr. Littlepage to kindly take the chair while I present notes on the subject of hybridizing nut trees. THE PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF HYBRIDIZING NUT TREES DR. ROBERT T. MORRIS, NEW YORK [Illustration: DR. ROBERT T. MORRIS OF NEW YORK _First President of the Association, 1911 and 1912_] In the experimental work of hybridizing nut trees, we soon come to learn that a number of practical points need to be acquired before successful hybridizing can be done. This is a special field in which few have taken part as yet, and consequently any notes upon the subject will add to the sum total of the knowledge which we wish to acquire as rapidly as possible. First, in collecting pollen; it is important to shake our pollen into dry paper boxes. If we try to preserve the pollen in glass or in metal, it is attacked by various mould fungi and is rapidly destroyed. We have to remember that pollen consists of live cells which have quite as active a place in the organic world as a red squirrel, and the pollen grains need to breathe quite as much as a red squirrel needs to breathe. Therefore they must not be placed in glass or metal or tightly sealed. Further, the pollen grains need to be kept cool in order to avoid attacks from the greatest enemy of all organic life, the microbes or the lower fungi. Probably we may keep pollen for a longer time than it could ordinarily be kept, if it is placed in cold storage, but practically I have tried the experiment on only one occasion. Last year I wished to cross the chinkapin with the white oak. The white oak blossoms more than a month in advance of the chinkapin in Connecticut, and the question was how we could keep the white oak pollen. Some of it was placed in paper boxes in cold storage; some in paper boxes in the cellar in a dry place. Pollen which had been kept in the cellar and pollen which had been kept in cold storage were about equally viable. It is quite remarkable to know that pollen can be kept for more than a month under any circumstances. Hybridization occurred in my chinkapins from this white oak pollen. Sometimes, where the flowering time of such trees is far apart, it is important to know how we may secure pollen of one kind for the female flowers of the other. Two methods are possible. In the first place, we may secure pollen from the northern or southern range of a species for application upon pistillate flowers at the other end of the range of that species. Another way is to collect branches carrying male flowers before the flowers have developed, place them in the ice house or in a dark, cold room without light until the proper time for forcing the flowers, and if these branches are then placed in water, the water changed frequently as when we are keeping flowers carefully, the catkins or other male flowers will develop pollen