30 THE XUT CULTURIST. 



Soil and Exposure for Almonds. The almond 

 requires a warm, rather light and well-drained soil. 

 Cold, heavy clays, and low, moist soils, whether light or 

 heavy, are always to be avoided for the almond and 

 closely allied trees. That the soil should be moderately 

 rich is, of course, a condition required with all culti- 

 vated nut and fruit trees, but over-stimulation may re- 

 sult in excessive and immature growth late in the sea- 

 son, this leaving the twigs in such a state that they will 

 be unable to resist even a few degrees of frost, to which 

 they may be subjected the ensuing winter. In what are 

 generally termed mild climates, or where the tempera- 

 ture seldom goes more than four to six degrees below the 

 freezing point, hardy trees, if they have made a late 

 growth, are often injured more than they would have 

 been in a colder climate, with early matured wood. 

 There are many kinds of what we consider very hardy 

 trees and shrubs here in the North, that are very likely 

 to be winterkilled or severely frosted when grown at 

 the South, simply because the conditions are such that 

 they do not ripen up in time to resist the cold. 



In touching upon the subject of location for an 

 almond orchard east of the Mississippi, I should be 

 inclined to relegate this valuable nut to semi-tropical 

 Florida, were it not for the fact that almost a score of 

 ornamental species and varieties of the same genus, to 

 say nothing of the widely cultivated peach, nourish 

 over a very wide range of country and climate, and 

 nowhere better than near the Atlantic ocean in the Mid- 

 dle and some of the Northern States. It is also gener- 

 ally conceded that several of what are called hard-shelled 

 varieties thrive and bear fruit in nearly all of our best 

 peach-growing regions. From all that I have been able 

 to learn of almond culture, and with my own limited 

 experience with this nut, experiments are wanting to 

 prove that it cannot be successfully cultivated in the 



