NUT GROWING, A NEW AMERICAN INDUSTRY 



103 



Every farmer ought to have nut trees on his place just 

 as he has fruit trees. He ought to have different kinds 

 of nuts, just as he has different kinds of apples, pears, 

 plums and peaches. Moreover, he ought not to be con- 

 tented with wild nut trees any more than he is con- 

 tented with wild apple or plum trees. He can now have 



A WONDERFUL PRODUCER 



A pecan tree in Indiana. It was such a tree as this which recently 

 produced $90 worth of pecans at 15 cents a pound. Another averaged 

 $90 a year for seven successive years, while a third gave an average 

 of $100 for three years. 



improved kinds of nuts of all varieties. He can begin 

 by top working his native shagbarks and pignuts to choice 

 shagbarks or pecans. His native black walnuts and but- 

 ternuts can be changed into English walnut trees. 



Everybody who has a place for a tree should set a 

 grafted nut tree. Every owner of a village plot, or even 

 of a city back yard, should have a nut tree. Never mind 

 the ailanthus and poplar. Grow a tree that bears some- 

 thing to eat. 



An infinite series of nut hybrids awaits the patient 

 and long-lived experimenter. The best prophets pre- 

 dict the world almost living on wonderful new nuts five 

 hundred years from now. Nature herself has already 

 given us hints of the hybrid possibilities, though her 

 chance results miss the mark that man's purposive efforts 

 may be expected to attain. 



Nut growing is only part of a new agriculture by 

 which much of the food of man and his domestic animals 

 shall be grown on trees, independent of many of the 

 limiting conditions of sown crops, but permitting, under 

 suitable conditions, companion cropping with sown or 



planted crops. It must be built on the idea of perma 

 nence and assurance. It must include the ideas of inten- . 

 sive cultivation, of two and three story agriculture, and 

 of growing legumes. On our arable land we shall grow 

 nut trees, three or four to the acre, giving them their 

 greatest possible development ; between them we shall 

 grow peanuts, beans and alfalfa; we shall keep some 

 chickens, pigs, sheep and a cow, and be forever inde- 

 pendent of the meatman. 



Of our steep, rocky and untillable slopes millions of 

 acres will be clothed with oaks, chestnuts and beeches, 

 with persimmons, pawpaws, mulberries, honey locusts 

 and sugar maples, binding the soil and conserving rain- 

 fall ; and beneath them our droves of pigs, flocks of 



AX INFANT OF TWO YEARS 



This young and ambitious chestnut, just two years from a graft, is 

 going into business for itself at an early age. Note the burrs. Many 

 grafted nut trees bear sooner than apples. 



sheep and herds of deer will find shade and water while 

 harvesting their own food. 



It is foolish to say, "I am too old to plant trees." Some 

 of our most enthusiastic nut planters are octogenarians 

 or better. Grafted nut trees bear as early or earlier than 

 other fruit trees. The man who plants fruit and nut 

 trees takes out a paid-up life insurance policy for himself 

 and his children. And the man who plants trees and 

 cares for them himself will disappoint his anxious heirs 

 and live long to enjoy the fruits of his own planting. 



