TREES AND CIVILISATION 193 



The grains are now our great staples, but if we 

 could only transfer our allegiance to the nuts 

 (which are extremely nourishing) , a great economic 

 saving would result. The feeble wheat must be 

 carefully nurtured in specially prepared soil and 

 succumbs easily before heavy rains and early frosts. 

 Orchards yielding acorns, walnuts, chestnuts, chin- 

 capins, hickory nuts and pecans require next to no 

 attention and need no soil ploughage at all. The 

 very fact of the small labour outlay required will 

 militate strongly against the general adoption of 

 nut-cultivation. There will be more opposition to 

 it than greeted the spinning jenny. Fruits of all 

 kinds are, of course, already grown on a large scale, 

 but if we could only cultivate a taste for acorn flour, 

 the trees would come into their own. Chestnuts 

 have long been a popular crop in Italy. The chest- 

 nut orchards there are said to net their owners as 

 much per acre as the best wheat lands in the United 

 States. 



When it comes to the relation of the trees to rain- 

 fall, one of the most vital spots of our civilisation 

 is touched. The water that descends upon the sur- 

 face of the earth is disposed of in one of three ways : 



( 1 ) It goes back into the air by direct evaporation. 



(2) It runs down to the sea in streams. (3) It 

 percolates into the earth, where it is held as in a 



