222 



The question of planting timber for posts in nonwooded districts has 

 attracted much attention, and is treated in a special circular of the 

 Forest Service.* 



Improvement should be made in using inferior species and defective 

 trees as much as possible, rather than to cut up good trees, as is now 

 the custom. The use of preservative treatmentf will put the less 

 durable woods on a par with the better species, and avoid much waste 

 of material better suited for other and more valuable purposes. 



THE NUT INDUSTRY 



Many farmers make small sums by collecting and selling pecan 

 and hickory nuts. There is no reason why this industry should not be 

 enlarged by proper treatment of the natural stand along the rivers, 

 such as the Mississippi, Ohio, Wabash, and Illinois, where pecans 

 form a considerable proportion of the stand and the yield of nuts in 

 good years is large. On the cut-over areas on the bottoms of these 

 rivers there are generally a great number of small pecan trees left after 

 lumbering, and open groves of trees where the pecans form as high as 

 ninety per cent of the stand are not uncommon. 



On the Ohio-Wabash bottoms certain acres gave in good years a 

 yield worth $12. The prices obtained for the nuts were ninety cents 

 to $1 a bushel for hickory nuts and twelve and one-half cents a pound 

 for pecans. On the Mississippi an owner gave the following figures 

 for his pecan grove : The trees yielded one to four bushels of nuts per 

 tree, worth $3.50 to $4 a bushel. The yield from two acres of trees 

 and some scattered trees about the farm amounted to about seventy- 

 five bushels in good years. Another example shows the yield from a 

 tract of about twenty acres which had been cleared of all trees except 

 the pecans. In 1902 the owner netted $90 from the sale of the nuts 

 at six to six and one-half cents per pound, after allowing one-half of 

 the nuts as compensation for the pickers. In 1903 the crop was poor, 

 but the owner netted $48, at $3 per bushel. Taking the average of these 

 two crops, the net income would be $69, or $3.45 per acre. This land 

 cost less than $25 an acre, so that this income represents more than 

 fourteen per cent on the investment. Of course, from these instances 

 nothing but general inferences can be drawn, but it seems an industry 

 that would bear closer investigation and more development in con- 

 nection with forest management. The yield per tree varies with age 

 and form, a mature tree with spreading crown being most prolific. 



♦Circular 69, "Fence Post Trees." 



fThis subject has been fully treated in the U. S. Department of Agriculture's 

 Farmers' Bulletin 387, ' ' The Preservative Treatment of Farm Timbers. ' ' 



