12 LUTHER BURBANK 



superfluous to briefly run over the list of com- 

 mercial nuts, with reference to their food values 

 and their present and prospective economic 

 importance. 



Such an outline may advantageously prepare 

 the way for the detailed account of the experi- 

 mental work through which new varieties of 

 several of the more important nuts have been 

 developed. 



THE CHIEF MARKETABLE NUTS 



The marketable nuts include almonds, Brazil 

 nuts, filberts, hickory nuts, pecans, Persian or 

 English walnuts, chestnuts, butternuts, walnuts 

 pine nuts, peanuts, and coconuts, not to men- 

 tion several less known and little used species. 



The coconut, the fruit of a palm tree, is indig- 

 enous to tropical and subtropical regions, and 

 may very likely have played a part in the history 

 of developing man not unlike that ascribed to 

 the date and the fig. It is still a most important 

 article of diet to inhabitants of tropical islands, 

 being prized not merely for the meat of the nut 

 but for the milky fluid which it furnishes in large 

 quantity. The natives sacrifice the partially ripe 

 nut for the sake of the milk, but most north- 

 erners find this a taste to be acquired with some 

 effort. 



