THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK ^ 



THE FUTURE OF NUT GROWING 



By Robert T. Morris, M. D. 



Lecture given in the American Museum of Natural History, 

 Thursday, February 8, 1923. 



{Mr. Leonard Barron, presiding.) 



WHENEVER I bring up the topic of nut culture in casual 

 conversation at the Clubs or elsewhere, the response usually 

 consists of some trivial comment. This means that the public is 

 not as yet awake to the seriousness of a new frontier of agricul- 

 ture in which millions of dollars are already invested. The subject 

 of nut culture relates definitely to the food supply of tomorrow. 



Huxley said that all other problems are effaced in the presence 

 of the monster over-population. 



Malthus in 1798 in his "Principles of Population" said that ex- 

 cepting for three special checks the human species would increase 

 beyond its food supply. When men of the first-rate mentality of 

 Huxley and of Malthus go so far astray the rest of us should take 

 warning and try hard to avoid becoming prophets. 



With our present-day knowledge of nut culture at hand we as- 

 sume that over-population would be impossible excepting as a so- 

 cial matter, to say nothing of the practically untouched potential 

 of the tropics and of circum-polar areas in the way of food supply. 

 Over-population as a social matter is demonstrated in painful 

 object lessons in China and India. People crowd there because 

 they like to do so in response to primitive gregarious instinct. It 

 is simply a matter of choice with them. 



In China and in India there are wild tigers and wild apes. 

 These countries can never be really over-populated until the wild 

 ape is obliged to take to the hoe. Practically every acre over 

 which tigers range can be made to yield nut crops for man and 

 his domestic animals in such lavish supply that export of food 

 products beyond the needs of the people would yield large revenue. 



Nut crops- furnish the essentials of diet in the way of starches, 

 oils, and proteins. They are destined to stand with food supply 



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