1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1199 



CHESTNUT- GROWING — THE IMPROVED VARI- 

 ETIES, ETC. 



I have told you how much we have enjoy- 

 ed the fruit of our peach orchard this season, 

 with new varieties ripening every day or two 

 in succession, from July until the last of 

 October. Well, you know there is quite a 

 community of good people — yes, very good 

 people — who declare that God intended us 

 to live on fruits and nuts. I have tried the 

 fruits pretty thoroughly; in fact, I lived on 

 peaches and milk three times a day just on 

 purpose to see if any bad result would fol- 

 low, even if I used them to excess, as you 

 might say. I am glad to report that they 

 did not hurt me a bit; in fact, I never felt 

 better in my life. So our cabin in the woods 

 is all right for the fruit side, for I have men- 

 tioned before the raspberries and blackber- 

 ries that seemed to bear continuously in the 

 Grand Traverse region. 



Of course, we have enough peanut butter 

 on our table, and salted peanuts. But of all 

 nuts that God ever gave to his children, the 

 best is, in my opinion, the chestnut. But I 

 should want them baked, roasted, or boiled. 

 My favorite way is to roast them on the 

 stove; and since I have succeeded so well in 

 raising peaches I have turned my attention 

 to growing nuts — especially chestnuts. 

 The catalogs tell us that the new and im- 

 proved large-sized nuts are grown on trees 

 no larger than peach-trees, and they are so 

 prolific that the trees have borne while still 

 m nursery rows. One of my neighbors up 

 in Michigan says he saw a little chestnut 

 grove where the trees were bearing loads of 

 huge nuts before they were as large as bear- 

 ing peach-trees usually are. I have planted 

 sample trees of all the new kinds of Spanish 

 and Japanese chestnuts. Some of them 

 have been growing two years, and may, per- 

 haps, bear next year. Now, can the readers 

 of Gleanings tell me what they have or 

 what they have seen in the way of the new 

 chestnut that bears at such an early age? 

 If I am correct, the large-sized nuts are not 

 as sweet as the native American chestnut; 

 but I have found samples of the nuts in our 

 large cities; and when they are roasted I find 

 them very good indeed, if not quite equal to 

 . the native. As there has been quite a little 

 stir about these large nuts for several years 

 past, somebody ought to have some bearing 

 trees by this time. By the way, what is our 

 experiment station doing in the way of test- 

 ing nut-bearing trees? I have seen somewhere 

 that in some foreign countries the large 

 chestnuts are a staple article of food, and not 

 a very expensive food either. 



Perhaps I should add that the greatest ob- 

 stacle in the way of growing the native 

 American chestnut is that it takes so many 

 years for them to become of bearing size. 



A neighbor of mine in Michigan has a row of 

 the common kind by the side of his peach- 

 orchard. There are fifteen or tv/enty trees 

 there now, each about a foot in diameter — 

 monstrous forest trees. They were planted 

 about twenty years ago. But, although they 

 grow rapidly in that fertile soil, they have 

 never borne very many nuts. 1 presume 

 they can be grafted with the improved early 

 varieties so as to give an abundance of nuts 

 in a very few years. 



At present the grafted trees are rather ex- 

 pensive. While small trees can be bought 

 for 30 or 40 cents, those of a bearing age cost 

 from 75 cents to $1.00. What has been done 

 up to the present day in the way of growing 

 chestnuts in America? 



Since the above was dictated I have run 

 across the following from a periodical called 

 Vital Culture: 



Nuts of all kinds are exceedingly nutritious, and can 

 be digested vdth ease by almost any one, provided they 

 are eaten either alone or in conjunction with other nat- 

 ural foods. Who can see a squirrel frisk about 

 without wishing that his body were as flexible and as 

 agile? The squirrel, as you remember, lives almost 

 entirely on nuts. 



You see when my chestnuts get to bear- 

 ing up there at the cabin in the woods, I 

 shall have plenty of frisky neighbors in the 

 shape of real squirrels; but I can hardly 

 expect, at my age, to get so "flexible" and 

 "agile" that I can climb trees and spring 

 from one to another as they do almost daily 

 all around our home. 



Perhaps I might add that we are now 

 purchasing beautiful new chestnuts in our 

 market for 20 cents a quart; and Mrs. Root 

 puts a dozen or two on the stove when she 

 is cooking, and we have a chestnut dessert 

 after each meal. I also notice by the Phila- 

 delphia Farm Journal, for November, that 

 the editor has visited J. T. Lovett's chest- 

 nut-farm near Bristol, Pa., where he has 30 

 acres of the improved chestnuts in bearing. 

 These trees are ten or twelve years old 

 from the graft, and are bearing from a 

 bushel to a bushel and a half to a tree. 



god's MEDICINES. 



My attention has been recently and forci- 

 bly called to another of God's remedies, and 

 I think it will go along very well with pure 

 air, outdoor exercise, good water to drink, 

 etc. It is the use of lemons, the acid that 

 God prepared especially for his children, and 

 it is entirely nature's work. There is a pe- 

 cuhar kind of indigestion that makes one 

 crave something sour. This is especially 

 the case in the spring of the year. Some 

 people eat pickles and similar manufactured 

 acids; but I believe that most of us have 

 found out they are, as a rule, very unwhole- 

 some and indigestible. The value of lemons 

 seems to be so well recognized that you can 

 buy them all over the world, in almost any 

 corner grocery, at almost any season of the 

 year. The prices, too, are within the reach 

 of everybody. With a little care, lemons 

 will keep not only for weeks but for months, 

 and they are always wholesome. When I 



