71 



forth in such quantity that a man with eight-tenths of an acre of land 

 at his disjjos':!! might raise a family of five on that amount of land. 

 The example of Java may stand for tropical jungles in general. 

 There will still be left the land that is traversed by wild animals. 

 This land need not be cultivated very ranch because sub soil crops 

 will in some cases give a larger food supply than that which is fur- 

 nished by cultivated land and' at much less expenditure in terms of 

 labor and money. Furthermore, sub soil crops do not exhaust the soil 

 as crops of annual plants do. 



Now let us carry this abstract statement to a concrete application 

 in Missouri. For purposes of conciseness, let us take only three suh 

 soil crops. 



The persimmon tree is a heavy cropper. The fruit of the per- 

 simmon stands close to the date in food value, (see U. S. Government 

 Report on the persimmon). Whole tribes of people live upon the 

 date as a chief food supply for men and for domesticated animals. 

 When Missouri takes up the question of cultivating large seedless per- 

 simmons and develops, methods of preserving them like dates it will 

 mean little expense and little expenditure of labor. The latter re- 

 mark applies to chestnuts also. 



Chestnuts furnish the chief starchy element of food for man and 

 his domesticated animals in parts of Europe and Asia today, taking 

 the place of wheat ynd the potato. The Chestnut blight has been a 

 severe blow to chestnut orchardists in this country, many of whom 

 were making fortunes; but the blight is by no means insurmountable. 



]\fany of the hybrid chestnuts are highly resistant to the blight 

 and the grafted trees of some of the varieties begin to bear so promptly 

 and so heavily that they yield large returns on the investment. If 

 attention is given to selecting blight resistant varieties and cutting 

 out blight areas of bark as soon as they appear it will mean no more 

 trouble than that which the apple orchardist already assumes as a 

 practical sort of resjoonsibility. 



The Black walnut will thrive practically everywhere in the State of 

 Missouri. Cultivated varieties of the Black W^alnut may be expected 

 to yield at least ten bushels of hulled nuts to the tree when in full 

 bearing. Given seven Black W^alnut trees to tlie acre and the present 

 market price of $8.00 per bushel for some of the cultivated varieties 



