Sterling A. Smith, Vermillon, O.: "With me, summer budding is the most successful means of propagating black walnuts." J. Russell Smith: "Chinese chestnuts will blight some if under-nourished." Which includes the wrong kinds of soil, if uncorrected. "Does anyone know for sure how to get pawpaw seed to germinate?" Several have asked this question. The chairman has had the same trouble, so can not answer. (Note by Ed. See "Nut Puttering in an Offyear" in this report.) So far as the correspondence shows, no state or federal department buys seed on a large scale (with the exception, now, of chestnut seed) from trees of the better named varieties with which to grow seedlings for distribution by state nurseries for forest planting. All nut seed seems to be gathered haphazardly. W. G. Tatum, Lebanon, Ky.: "A nut tree with plenty of root, top cut back one third, promptly set, roots protected, stem wrapped, 4 inches, mulch applied, set either spring or fall, grows for me 99% of the time. Failures are not worth mentioning if the above conditions are met." Carl Weschcke, St. Paul, has a dozen or so extra hardy Persian walnuts by selection from some 12,000 seedlings. Also is introducing the hardy "Hazelbert," result of crosses between wild varieties and filberts. "Dip wire screen guards in red lead and they will be good for twenty years." Thomas and Stambaugh, among the black walnuts, are, with justice, entrenched leaders, but it will be well to watch Patterson, Mintle, Elmer Myers, Eureka, Creitz, Todd, and other promising new ones less well known. Thomas is more prolific in the south (generally) than in the north, which indicates that its bloom may possibly be out nearly enough to suffer in the north from late frosts. Among chestnuts, the weight of evidence favors Hobson, Carr and Reliable, though J. Russell Smith says he has something he likes better than the first two. Among pecans, Major, Greenriver, Pleas; among filberts and hazels, Winkler, Jones hybrid, Cosford, Gellatly, Brixnut; among Persian walnuts, Broadview, one or two Crath varieties, Payne, Breslau; among hickories, Stratford, Fairbanks, Barnes, Glover, Weschcke. These seem, so far as the returns show, to have outstanding points of superiority. In any such survey, injustice is bound to be done to some not fully reported. Outside of filberts in the northwest, no northern grown nut can yet be said to have reached the status of a profitable commercial crop. (Exception: The narrow pecan belt along the southern terminus of the Ohio river valley; mostly wild trees.) Dr. A. S. Colby, University of Illinois says, "The report from the State Statistician at Springfield indicated a crop of 575,000 pounds of pecans for Illinois in 1943. I don't know just where they came from." Short crops were reported in Calhoun and Gallatin, leading nut producing counties. No reports have been received as to the size of pecan crops in the Kentucky and southern Indiana portions of the same belt.