Enough has been said to blaze the way to the end at which I have been driving. It may begin to look as though modern plant explorers have now followed the plant-spoor of human migrations to their final limits. It may look, too, as though the ends of these converging trails will find civilization at last firmly established. Or will they? The future race, let us admit, may eventually be able, by means of an almost unthinkable development of food, clothing, building and medical supplies of a synthetic or semi-synthetic nature, to dispense with some of the agriculture we know. This is the prediction of some scientists. Let it stand. What then is to be done with the land upon which our food crops had formerly been raised? Manifestly, it must again be covered with hurricane-control, flood-control, and erosion-control vegetation, chiefly trees, perhaps. Trees for safety's sake, trees for beauty's sake, for recreation's sake, trees for food's--yes, food's sake, for flavor and health, trees and vegetation as sources for the very synthetic that are supposed to supplant them; and last but not least, trees and vegetation for the protection and perpetuation of animal life, of bird life, and insect life. All these are inseparably bound up with human life. Come what may at the hands of a short-sighted human race, no matter what surface changes may come about in human eating habits, housing styles, farming or factory practice, still the winds will sweep the earth in hurricanes where there is nothing to impede them; the waters and ice of the heavens will still tear apart and level the hills, will gash the valleys and will carry off the earth and dump it into the sea. Following this, the sun will burn the unprotected earth into a cinder. Nothing can change these facts. From the beginning of life upon the earth, trees and vegetation have been the chief means by which a balance has been maintained between the antagonistically destructive and creative natures of the elements. Do we realize fully, I wonder, how important is the work of this group and the parent NNGA? The interest of its members is chiefly in "wild" trees that produce food crops--mainly, but not exclusively, nut crops. And they are interested not merely in planting and testing names and known varieties, but in finding and testing the best individuals among the wild trees, planting selected seed, enjoying the exciting gamble which is always sealed up in the magic, unknown potentialities of a hybrid.