^c pastry . 



BLACK WALNUT TREES FOR LUMBER-IL 



{Continued from March No.) 



REES grown to produce timber require very different treatment. 

 In this case, the planting should be done in large blocks, and 

 the land should be as well prepared as if for a crop of wheat. 

 The nuts should be planted in rows about five feet apart and 

 about the same distance apart in the row. The land should 

 be kept in a high state of cultivation so that a vigorous growth may be assured. 

 Vegetables may be grown between the rows. The cultivation may be done 

 mostly by horse labor, and should be continued for eight or ten years, after 

 which it will only be necessary to keep down extraneous growth and to see that 

 the groves are properly pruned and thinned. 



The tendency of trees growing near to each other is to grow taller and to 

 put out fewer branches. 



Pruning walnut trees consist only in cutting out the few small shoots on the 

 trunk of the tree and to assist nature — by removing an occasional branch — in 

 developing a straight upward growth. 



Thinning a walnut grove. — Over 1,700 trees will be grown on each acre 

 when planted at about five feet apart each way. As this number must be 

 reduced to about fifty in forty or fifty years, it requires the exercise of much 

 judgment and discretion to select about fifty of the best of these from this 

 number that are about equi-distant from each other, and to remove the remainder 

 from time to time, so that the trees selected for growth to maturity shall have 

 sufficient room on all sides for proper development, and at the same time receive 

 the necessary protection from the other trees to enable them to maintain their 

 upright, sturdy growth for at least fifty years. 



(2) Walnut groves may often be planted on land less valued for agricultural 

 purposes. In many places, even in the thickly populated portions of the rural 

 districts, areas of considerable extent may be found quite unsuitable for ordi- 

 nary farming operations (although the soil may be of excellent quality) because 

 of its being cut from the cultivatable portion of farms by a small river, a 

 ravine, a rocky ridge, a railway, or other obstacle ; or where the land may 

 be low lying, the soil very rich and deep and so intermixed with boulders 

 to the depth of several feet, as to render it almost worthless for ordinary 

 cultivation ; hundreds of acres of this description may be seen from the 

 railway between Omemee and Peterboro', as also in thousands of other places 

 throughout the province. Planting such lands with walnuts and subsequently 

 managing them with ordinary intelligence would ultimately prove to be more 

 profitable and safe investments and more beneficial to posterity than in cultivat- 

 ing the best lands after the manner usually prevailing at present. 



