35 



available plant foods, should be continued during each year until the 

 trees are from six to ten years of age — after which cultivation may be 

 discontinued providing the trees are able to make sufficient growth each 

 year to maintain good production. It is important at all times that the 

 grower study his trees carefully and see that they are healthy and 

 vigorous and that a substantial growtli is secured each season. Other- 

 wise he cannot realize a profit from nut production and the trees are 

 likely to be a disappointment. 



Nut Tree Yields 



Pecans, walnuts, and hickories, may produce a few nuts at an 

 early age, but paying crops are not usually expected under ten years 

 and a full crop of nuts is generally not received until the trees are 

 from fifteen to twenty years old. An average crop ranges from on€ 

 to twenty bushels. Production, as with fruits, will depend largely 

 upon the culture the nut trees receive. Nut trees under good cultivation 

 may in twelve or fourteen years, bear as many nuts as neglected trees 

 at twenty-five years of age. 



Profits from Nut Trees 



No one should think of getting rich quick by planting groves of 

 any of the nut trees mentioned above, neither is it generally advisable 

 for farmers to plant large acreages to nut trees upon land which is 

 well adapted for tlie growing of truck, grain, or orchard crops. If 

 interested in nut culture, it is usually a wise procedure for the grower 

 to start on a small scale, making his plantings on waste land or iin- 

 accessible land which is not well adapted to the growing of ordinary 

 farm crops. Such land should, of course, be fertile and well-drained 

 but it is not necessary that it be as level and as accessible as that 

 generally used in crop production. The farmer who has had ex- 

 perience in nut culture may, of course, profitably and safely extend 

 his plantings to a much greater extent than the beginner. 



Truck crops such as potatoes, cabbage, watermelons, cantaloupes 

 and strawberries may be grown successfully as inter-crops until the 

 trees' come into profitable bearing. The farmer may also frequently 

 utilize to advantage the grass which grows beneath nut trees. Trees 

 of large size are rarely injured by live stock, and as a rule all our 

 common grasses do well when grown beneath them. 



