72 



SOME OBSERVATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO NUT BEAR- 

 ING TREES IN DISTANT LANDS 



By Dr. J. Russell Smith, Professor of Economic Geography, 

 Columbia University, New York 



I want to talk about the Persian walnut which seems to me to be 

 exceedingly suggestive in many commercial and scientific aspects. 

 One of the most suggestive things in the whole matter of tree crops 

 is the statement in Sargent's great book that "In its wild form the 

 Persian walnut is a worthless nut." Now think what the worthless nut 

 has become in the present Persian walnut of the markets. 



This tree is a native of Persia. It has spread both east and west 

 until it has spread around the world. I have myself seen it in Jiapan, 

 Korea, near Peking and Shanghai and also in Shansi in China, in 

 Kashmir, Persia, Palestine, Asia Minor, right straight across Europe 

 from Constantinople through Switzerland to the English Channel. A 

 tree that has adjusted itself to such varied climates has possibilities 

 that we have hardly realized, and certainly not utilized. 



While we have thousands of them here in the United States no one 

 has got to the point of having lany important commercial Persian wal- 

 nut orchards east of the Rocky Mountains. It has dbne its best on 

 the Pacific Coast for two reasons. In some places the summer is not 

 so hot there. The summer is much drier where it is hot. The winters 

 are not so cold and the spring is more even in its advance. The 

 summer of England is cold', the summer of Italy is hot but dry. Fungi 

 thrive in the heat and humidity. That combination, heat and humidity, 

 makes our eastern summer bad for plants imported into this country 

 from Europe. An example of what this does to European plants was 

 the failure of the wine grape upon which the Virginia colony expected 

 to base its whole business. The colony went broke until shipments 

 of tobacco made good. Those wine grapes were the first of a very 

 long series of failures, more or less complete, including the importa- 

 tion of the Persian walnut to the eastern states. 



One thing that has prevented any commercially successful growth 



