Nut Growing, a New American Industry 



Ev William C. Deming 



MnST people who live in cities come to think, if cause the)' are the richest natural food substance known, 

 thev think about it at all, that the city is the A nut is a seed, the result of Nature's supreme effort to 

 whole thing. The country is well enough for a pack as much nourishment as she can into the smallest 

 couple of weeks' vacation in the summer, or as a source possible space for the nourishment of the future young 

 of milk and country sausage, but the city with its hurry plant. Compared with the concentrated richness of the 

 and bustle and vast business interests is the really im- nut the red-cheeked juicy pulp of the apjjle or peach is 

 portant thing on which all else depends. Nothing of the but a sip of sweetened water, very pleasant to the taste 

 kind. If the cities were all destroyed and the inhabitants and important in the dietary but of little value as food. 

 distriljuted among the farms 

 everxbody would get along 

 prettv comfortably. But if 

 the farms were destroyed the 

 great cities of the world would 

 perish in a few days. The 

 farms furnish the food for the 

 cities. 



The cities are growing faster 

 than the farms. How are we 

 going to feed the great city 

 populations of the future? Is 

 it to be on the present hand- 

 to-mouth system of agricul- 

 ture, with annual crops sown 

 in the spring and reaped in tlie 

 fall — if the weather is good? 

 A bonanza king if it rains just 

 right, a near-bankrupt if the 

 weather and bugs are bad? (.)r 

 are we going to develop a more 

 stable and permanent system 

 of agriculture in which tree 

 crops shall have a prominent 

 place ? 



A tree is a permanent thing. 

 It lasts for years or hundreds 

 of years. It doesn't have to be 

 sown or planted every year, 



and hoed and cared for like a grain crop or pota- nuts as food 



toes or beans. Once its great roots go down into Many nuts, on the other hand, contain as much muscle- 



the earth it is pretty nearly independent of flood and building food as rich cheese, a third more than beefsteak, 

 drought. Pigs and sheep and cattle can graze under its twice as much fat as cheese, five times as much as beef- 

 shade and do it good rather than harm. And if your steak and seven times as much as eggs. Chestnuts con- 

 tree is a "great engine of production," an oak. chestnut, '^^'" ''^^ P^'' '^^"'^ o^ starch, nearly as much as the best 

 walnut, hickorv, fig, pawpaw, persimmon, mulberry, carob ^^'^'^'''^ *^°"'' ^"^ ^""'' ^""^s ^* '""'^'^ ^^ potatoes. Peanuts 

 01 honey locust, the dropping therefrom will fatten th.- ^"^ '"'"''^°''>' ""'^' ^""^ ^hree times as nourishing as beef- 



Tllli BEAUTlFfL SIGHT OF AX ALMOXD ORCHARD IN BLOOM 



The almond industry is steadily growing in this country, and is a profitable one. The blooming orchards 



are worth going miles to see. 



animals without labor by man. 



Nine-tenths of our crops go to nourish our domestic 

 animals and much of our work is waiting on them. If 

 we can manage so that the animals will wait on them- 

 selves, and there is nothing that agrees with them better, 

 we shall have more time to play with the children. 



Of all the tree crops nuts are the most important be- 



slcak. When you think of it that way it hardly seems 

 to be the thing to munch casually triple extract of beef- 

 steak from a street nut stand or after a hearty dinner. 



The bad reputation for digestibility that nuts have is 

 due to such things. Eaten at the right time, in the right 

 amount and properly chewed they are as digestible as any 

 food of equal richness. 



A fifty-pound bushel of black walnuts costing one 



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