Where relatively small quantities of nuts are to be shelled there is little to be chosen between the home-industry method and such factory method as was used by me. The cost of delivering the nuts to the homes may be roughly set over against the cost of operating a factory. Based on the hours of work required to produce a given quantity of kernels, the factory method is more efficient. On the other hand, the home worker will work for a smaller wage per hour. Where large quantities of nuts are available, commercial cracking by machine methods will be increasingly used in the future, especially if economic conditions so far improve that people will no longer work for starvation wages. Point is given to this observation by the fact that local buyers paid from 8 to 15c for country-produced kernels last season, while my bare cost, without overhead or profit, was 20c per pound. * * * * * The most notable advance that has come to my attention during the past year in the way of commercial production of black walnut kernels is that contributed by Mr. C. E. Werner, President of the Forest Park Nut Company, of Ottawa, Kansas. Mr. Werner, who is 84 years of age and a veteran inventor with several notable inventions to his credit, has designed and built a machine that seems to mark a new era in black walnut kernel production. This machine, which is mounted on a truck, is not only used for the local operations of the company, but is moved from place to place in the performance of custom work, after the manner of a grain threshing outfit. Mention is made in company correspondence of cracking twenty thousand bushels of nuts for one customer in southwest Missouri. The following details were supplied by the manager of the company. The machine has a capacity of from 75 to 100 pounds of kernels per hour. As they come from the machine they carry not more than 10% shells, and run from 28 to 30% full quarters. After being hand cleaned the net recovery of kernels represents from 10 to 11-1/2% of the weight of the whole nuts. Custom work is charged for at the rate of from 3 to 5c per pound for the kernels produced. The cost of the final hand cleaning and packaging is given as 2c per pound, which makes a total production cost of from 5 to 7c per pound.