59 



and shade, whatever nuts they bear is just that much gain over what 

 would have been produced by trees which do not bear edible products. 



Profit from Nut Crops 

 A scientific answer to the question as to whether a nut planting in 

 a particular part of the North will, or will not pay, can be made only 

 where a planting in that region, or one like it, in so far as general en- 

 vironment is concerned, actually does so. Repeated failures, no matter 

 how many there are or how 'long they may be continued, do not show 

 that under different conditions results would not have been favorable. 

 With the exception of three or four chestnut orchards in Illinois, one 

 Persian walnut orchard and one filbert planting in western New York, 

 and possibly a chestnut orchard or so in Delaware, there are no known 

 instances within the region under discussion in which the nut crops 

 from enough planted trees in a single place to dignify by use of the 

 term "orchard" liave yet been profitable except during exceptionally 

 favorable years, such as seldom occur. The failures in attempted nut 

 growing have been many, and, if published, they would comprise a 

 lengthy volume, but at best they are negatively constructive and hardly 

 worth cataloguing. There are, however, certain economic phases of the 

 situation which must not be left out of consideration. In the first 

 place, the native species upon which chief reliance must be made have 

 been here longer than the United States has been a country. The 

 American people in this part of the country have always had native 

 nuts which they might have eaten, but they have neither developed the 

 habit of consuming nuts as daily articles of food nor have the pro- 

 ducers found it profitable to devote any considerable portion of their 

 land to nut-producing trees. The kernels of black walnuts, hickory 

 nuts, chestnuts and jaecans are unsurpassed in palatability by those 

 of any nuts in the world, no matter how long nor on what part of the 

 globe they have been under cultivation. 



Black walnuts and hickory nuts commonly bring but a dollar or 

 two a bushel. Even at this price the demand is limited, and it does 

 not profit the average farmer to pay for gathering, hulling and curing 

 if he has also to pay freight rates to distant markets. 



The people of this country are in no apparent need of more food. 

 Perhaps the greatest economic question confronting' the American 

 farmer today is what to do with all the food which he is now producing. 



