



A TREATISE ON NUT CULTURE. 18 



A PLEA FOR NUT TREES. 



By A. S. Fuller, in American Agriculturist. 



'TlT SEEMS to be one of the weaknesses of mankind to cling to old ideas, 

 ** and even venerate the acts of ancestors, whether they were wise or 



otherwise. Because the first white men who settled in the New England 

 States made much of the American elm, planting it almost everywhere to the 

 exclusion of better and more valuable trees, or because the Holland Dutch, in 

 the settlement of Manhattan and I/ong Island, saw fit to import Dutch cork -bark 

 elm and European lindens, planting these about their grounds and along the 

 roadsides, it does not follow that we should perpetuate their practices centuries 

 later, as is now being done in many localities. In Europe this clinging to 

 ancestral ideas and practices is just as much a trait of the people as it is in this 

 country, but fortunately, some wise man of ancient times discovered that a 

 tree might be both useful and ornamental, and, with the two combined, the 

 planter would be doubly blessed. 



When or by whom the Chestnut and Walnut were first introduced into 

 Southern and Central Europe is nw unknown, but it was very early discov- 

 ered that they were beautiful and easily grown trees, yielding an immense 

 amount of excellent and nutritious food for both man and beast. The fashion 

 or custom once established among the people, the propagation and planting of 

 these trees became general, and has continued uninterruptedly in several 

 European countries for more than two thousand years. They are planted 

 along the highways, in parks and forests, and for memorial trees for births and 

 marriages in fact, to set out a nut tree is considered an act commendable alike 

 in prince and peasant. The result of this custom is to be seen in the annual 

 crop of over thirty millions of bushels of Chestnuts alone, gathered in 



