FLOWERS IN PREPARATION FOR BEECHNUTS 



Beechnuts, though most delicious, are small and seldom marketed in this country. Some day the woods 

 ■will be explored for the beech trees {Fayus americana) with superior nuts (they vary greatly in size) for 

 special propagation. The beechnut has rich food and mast values, while yielding a high grade of oil. With 

 the increasingly high cost of meat, we are importing more nuts. American nut culture should be looked 

 into. There is no reason why a tree cannot be grown for many annual harvests of nuts and a final harvest 

 of wood also, making a farmer's wood lot or even a steep hillside as valuable as the best agricultural land. If 

 a hickory with poor nuts be cut for lumber, graft on the best shagbark. Transplant young nut trees (hickory, 

 walnut, chestnut, etc.), and graft on the finest of their kind. Then multiply this crop by planting an under- 

 story (keeping it cut low) of locust, or annual crops of cowpeas — in either case a member of the pea family 

 to gather nitrogen and share it with the nut trees. Nut culture in America will undoubtedly receive a strong 

 impetus as one of the results of the food crisis and war of 1917 



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