24 A TREATISE ON NUT CULTURE. 



NUT CULTURE. 



*^> x^ .^O 



By Correspondent to Greenes Fruit Grower. 



E DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE will soon issue a report on 

 the wonderful progress of nut culture in the United States. It is an 

 entirely new industry. Ten years ago nobody ever thought of such a thing as 

 cultivating nuts in this country. It seemed natural that they should grow 

 wild and not otherwise. At present nut trees of many kinds are being grown 

 and grafted in nurseries. Orchards of them have been set out in several States, 

 and there is every prospect that by the time another decade has passed nuts 

 will be plentiful in the market of varieties as superior to those now eaten as 

 cultivated fruits are ordinarily better than wild ones. 



At the show of the National Pomological Association, in Washington, the 

 other day, nothing excited so much attention as a plate containing four huge 

 open chestnut burrs. In each burr were revealed three or four gigantic nuts, 

 as big as the French ' ' Marrons. ' ' They were in fact obtained by a Pennsyl- 

 vania grower by a graft of the imported Marron Chestnut on a native tree. In 

 Japan grow the largest Chestnuts in the world. They are twice as big as the 

 Marrons. Seeds of them have been brought to this country and propagated 

 very successfully. Unfortunately, neither the Japanese nut nor the Marron is 

 equal in quality to the Chestnut of the United States; but it is believed that 

 eventually Chestnuts can be obtained by crossing the strains which will have 

 the size of the Japanese and the flavor of the American. It is all a matter of 

 grafting, and the nurserymen are pursuing the object in view most anxiously. 

 There are already a number of growers in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New 

 Jersey, who have orchards of trees in bearing. 



How much can be accomplished by introducing foreign strains of Chest- 



