FOOD-PRODUCING TREES 



229 



tunately there are plenty of such lands. Lands with first- 

 class climate are too valuable to grow mere wood. Some 

 part of our country to the South, as indicated by climatic 

 studies, 1 as well as by history and present development, 

 seems not to have a first-class climate for the development 

 of numerous, vigorous, energetic and healthy men. Here 

 timber should be grown. Certain parts of America are 

 too cold and have winters too long for the easy support 

 of large numbers of people. Here also timber should be 

 grown up to the limit of trees. But in that large middle 





NOTE THE COMPARISON' 

 On this ground, twenty miles north of Seville, Spain, is seen on one side of the 

 fence a fire-desolated goat pasture, on the other grain fields interspersed with 

 oak trees producing forage for fattening hogs. 



territory of which the United States has so much, and 

 Canada has some, where it is neither too hot nor too 

 cold, where the malaria does not prevail, and the climate 

 stimulates man to activity, and climate permits production, 

 there land should be made to feed him in the largest 

 numbers. There trees should not loaf their lives away. 

 Under the present system of land utilization most of 

 Appalachia with its splendid climate has no economic 

 future except in forests. Present tillage for it means de- 

 struction through the gulley. Yet we have the very 

 stimulating example of Corsica where similar mountain 

 slopes as steep as a house roof and even steeper are clothed 

 for miles in a continuous expanse of trees which look 

 strangely like a forest, yet every tree is a grafted chestnut. 

 Every acre is as valuable as good corn land in Indiana, 

 and scattered along the magnificent macadam roads are 

 the substantial stone villages of the numerous population 

 that supports itself in comfortable prosperity from the 

 combined income of chestnuts, chestnut wood, and the 

 by-product of pasture and a small garden patch. The 

 chestnut industry has continued in Corsica for centuries. 

 Certainly the earth offers few examples of agriculture so 

 permanent, so automatic, and so easy. When a Corsican 

 gets pushed for money he goes out and cuts down an old 

 giant worth often from $10 to $25 in American gold. 



There are many crop trees that may rival or equal the 

 chestnut. Such utilization of our hills and mountain 

 slopes would increase rather than decrease the tree area 

 of much of the hilly part of our country and at the same 

 time give the needed soil conservation, the needed water 

 conservation, the needed scenic effects, and the spiritual 

 comfort of the great trees. 



Making Over the Wild Trees 



It should not be forgotten that the thing I am advo 

 eating is quicker than forestry. The man, even the young 

 man, who plants an oak tree has little reason to expect 

 to live to utilize the timber from its trunk. Yet it is a 

 fact that most of our oaks have specimens which will bear 

 fruit in from three to seven years when grafted upon the 

 suckers growing up around the stumps of their own or 

 allied species. Thus, instead of having the forest fire fol- 

 low the lumberman, he should be followed by the tree 

 grafter, converting mediocre oaks into prolific oaks, medi- 

 ocre hickories into good shag-barks, wild persimmons into 

 fruitful persimmons, average black -walnuts into those few 



BEARS 1200 liters op acorns yearly 



The food value of the annual crop of this evergreen oak tree near Algarve, 

 Portugal, with its spread of fifty feet, is indicated by its record production of 

 acorns. 



excellent ones that will furnish kernels in whole quarters, 

 ever-bearing mulberries in place of the prolific but quick- 

 ripening wild variety. All the above kinds of grafting are 

 from present knowledge known to be feasible. 2 I have 

 taught ignorant mountaineers how to do the whole lot 

 except the oak, and that is a common practice in English 

 parks and gardens. 



This process of establishing crop trees need not be 

 limited to the conversion of wild trees. Many of the fruit- 

 yielding trees are easy to transplant, and some of them 

 yield quickly, especially the mulberries, which fruit wild 

 at the height of a man's head, while specimens of the 

 selected "ever-bearing" varieties will actually bear in the 

 nursery row. The mulberry is so highly prized by the pig, 



1 See Ellsworth Huntington, Climate and Civilization. 



2 See reports of Northern Nut Growers' Association, W. C. 

 Deming, Secretary, Georgetown, Connecticut. 



