126 A TREATISE ON NUT CULTURE. 



NUT GROWING IN SONOMA COUNTY. 

 By Luther Bnrbank, of Santa Rosa, at the Santa Rosa Farmers' 1 Institute. 



The culture of the Olive, which, here on our picturesque hills and moun- 

 tains, finds its most congenial home ; the Orange in our sheltered dales ; the 

 Sugar Beet, with several thousand pounds of sugar per acre, in our fertile, sunny 

 valleys, will make the whole land smile with wealth, and add still more indus- 

 tries to the wonderfully varied ones of this great, and, horticulturally speaking, 

 only half explored Sonoma county. 



WALNUTS. And still another is Walnut culture, which has been so per- 

 sistently and surprisingly overlooked, probably from the fact that the few Walnuts 

 first planted happened to' be an unproductive, half wild stock,, which, though 

 growing with wonderful freedom and vigor, only occasionally produced a few 

 inferior nuts after many years of patient waiting, but never sufficient to inspire 

 confidence enough to induce planting for profit. But, while we have been 

 sleeping, our Southern friends have found improved varieties, which they have 

 planted largely, and princely incomes are now and have been received from the 

 Southern Walnut groves. 



The counties of Santa Barbara, Ventura, I^os Angeles and Orange are the 

 only ones at the present time that can be said to produce Walnuts as a commer- 

 cial crop, and yet in 1894 there were five million five hundred and forty-five 

 thousand pounds of Walnuts exported from Southern California, and this year 

 the crop is figured at six million pounds. In the year 1894 the United States 

 imported about fifteen million pounds of various nuts, and in the period from 

 1880 to 1890 not less than $7,124,575 worth, and the importation and consump- 

 tion of nuts is now steadily increasing at the rate of 45 per cent, per annum. 



Do the planters of Sonoma county, knowing the above facts, think the 

 market will soon have a surplus of nuts ? 



Nuts are a very nutritious and inexpensive food. They supply the same 

 hydro-carbonaceous compounds and mineral salts found in butter, bread, meat 

 and eggs, and in a concentrated but attractive and easily digestible form. 



FITTED To SONOMA COUNTY. The writer, some twelve years ago, was sur- 

 prised to notice the finest Persian often called English or French Walnuts 

 that he had ever seen, growing as far North as Shasta county. After a thorough 

 personal investigation of the best Walnut growing sections of the State, and 

 comparisons of growth, early bearing and productiveness of the trees, and quality 

 of the nuts, he became convinced that Sonoma county is one of the best, if not 

 the very best, locations in the State for Walnuts. If the right variety is planted, 

 nuts can be produced here as early and abundantly as anywhere, and superior 

 in plumpness and quality to any placed on the market. 



