53 



and farm management. Some desk artists omit a large part of the 

 problem. 



The real question about cultivating nut trees is: Will the net re- 

 turns of the process be better with cultivation or with some substitute 

 method of giving the trees essentially similar benefits ? 



There is much excellent practice in both Enrope and America that 

 tends to disprove the universality of the rule "Cultivate trees for 

 profits." 



For example, much the greater part of the Persian walnut crop of 

 France and of Switzerland is grown on scattered trees along the road- 

 sides and fence rows, or field edges which in America would be fence 

 rows. Many stand out in the fields and get what the field gets. The 

 trees sometimes get some cultivation as the adjacent land, or adjacent 

 crop, is tilled and sometimes they do not, but they make a crop worth 

 many millions of dollars in the aggregate, and the tree has cost but 

 little because it had no item of overhead expense. 



American experience is also suggestive. Is there nothing to be 

 learned from the fact that millions of wild American black walnut 

 trees and hickory trees are growing and bearing big crops in a great 

 variety of fields, fence rows and roadsides ? 



Twenty-five years ago the horticultural doctors were announcing 

 with sonorous authority that apple trees had to be cultivated to pro- 

 auce good crops. As a matter ot tact, tlie present practice of many 

 large, successful growers proves that in many parts of the eastern 

 United States all the cultivation an apple orchard needs to produce 

 more than the market will take is a mowing machine to keep down the 

 grass and weeds, and a liberal application of chemicals to feed the 

 trees. Feed the trees. Don't forget the word Feed when cultivation 

 is in mind. 



I own apple trees that were planted out in stump land that has 

 never yet been plowed. The trees have grown to the capacity of sev- 

 eral barrels per tree and borne many crops. Their only treatment has 

 been keeping down brush and weeds with one scythe mowing per year, 

 piling the trash around the tree when it was little, and fertilizing it 

 every year. Again I emphasize, this depends on feeding. The use 



