A TREATISE ON NUT CULTURE. 13 



smaller and so are the branches and leaves, but the nuts are generally large, 

 and some of the varieties of this Asiatic species bear the largest of all Chest- 

 nuts, although some of them are quite small. Nearly all of them are of poor 

 quality, and the skin is bitter, except in a few very rare cases. The nuts are, 

 as a rule, almost devoid of pubescence. In point of bearing the trees are very 

 precocious and productive. Unlike the European type the Japanese species of 

 Chestnut usually succeed quite well worked upon our native American 

 seedlings. 



Mr. Luther Burbank, of California, has been for a long time growing 

 seedlings of this species in the hope of securing choice varieties and has 

 chosen two out of a lot of about ten thousand, that he considered good in all 

 respects. These are now owned and being grafted extensively by two gentle- 

 men in Connecticut. 



A few chance seedlings, and some as the result of careful attempts to 

 originate good varieties, have been thought to be worthy of varietal names and 

 propagation by grafting. Some of these are mentioned below: Alpha, Early 

 Reliance, Giant, Killen, Superb. 



The Hickories ^ tlle Hickory family there are only two species of 

 special importance as nut trees anywhere in America, 



so far as we now know them. Of these, the Pecan, Hicoria Pecan, is out of 

 climate in New York, being at home in the Gulf States and rarely doing well 

 as a nut producing tree north of Delaware, Kentucky and Kansas. It will 

 grow as far North as Southern Iowa and Massachusetts, but does not flourish 

 in those States. It is by far the best of all native American nuts and already 

 enters largely into commerce. 



The Little Next to the Pecan comes the Little Shellbark Hick- 



S he 11 bark or ^' Hiciora ovata, both in point of commercial im- 



portance and general goodness. It may seem strange 



to some, that there are firms in Pennsylvania that crate and ship kernels 

 of this nut to the extent of twenty-three tons to a single season. Its range of 

 natural territory is very large, extending from the New England States almost 

 to the Gulf of Mexico. In most parts of New York it does well, as it is found 

 wild in the .forests and grown in many fields and pastures where the trees have 

 been left because of the good qualities of their nuts. It might seem strange 

 that the culture of this nut should be urged, but the steadily increasing 

 destruction of 'the trees for their timber, and the increasing value of their nuts, 

 would warn us to preserve all that may be practicable of the wild trees, and 

 plant new Hickory groves. There are many waste places where little corners 

 or rocky hillsides are already covered with Hickory growth that might be 

 saved from the axe. Other places not easily cultivated might be planted with 

 nuts of choice quality and thus made profitable. They should be planted about 



