All have agreed that the flavor of the beechnut was excellent, that it had a shell so thin that it could be opened with a pocket knife, that it was an oily nut and would keep, like the thin shelled hickories, walnuts, etc., and not a starchy one, which would dry out like chestnuts and acorns, that it would grow and bear well in northern sections where the best nuts we have do not grow well, but also that it was so small as to practically nullify the above mentioned excellent qualities. If we ever get a beechnut the size of a chestnut we shall have a most needed addition to our nut bearing trees, but there has been so little hope of finding such that no one has paid much attention to the beech. As a matter of fact not within the last ten years have there been any prizes offered for beechnuts except those provided by the writer at his own expense, neither have there been at any time during the writer's recollection any varieties suggested excepting one or two by Omer R. Abraham, Martinsville, Ind., which nobody has growing, so far as known to the writer. It was thought that there might be a large fruited species of beech growing in some part of the world as is the case with the chestnut, walnut, hickory and hazel, and that it would only be necessary to import it to get what was needed, or at least to make a good start in getting what was needed. Rehder in his wonderfully helpful "Manual of Cultivated Trees and Shrubs" gives seven species of beech, one in America, Fagus grandiflora, one in Europe, F. sylvatica, two in Japan, F. sieboldii and F. japonica, two in China, F. longipetiolata and F. engleriana and one in Asia Minor, F. orientalis. These are growing in the Arnold Arboretum and leaves, buds and fruits are to be seen in the herbarium there. A day spent there, however, half in the arboretum and half in the herbarium, convinced the writer that there is at present no large fruited species of beech known to botanists. There is an incompletely known species of Chinese beech, F. lucida, whose fruit is not in the Arnold Arboretum. While it is of course possible that there may yet be a large fruited species somewhere in the world, still the relatively slight differences in the leaf, bud and fruit of the seven species already known makes this seem improbable and leads us to conclude that the genus "Fagus" is the most uniform in the species that make it up of any genus of nut bearing trees. This seemingly reduces us to the necessity of seeking variation in species already known.