No. 4.] NUT CULTURE FOR MASSACHUSETTS. 207 



Further evidence of the importance of nut growing may 

 be found in the extent of their cultivation and use in 

 Europe and other continents. The walnut trees on many 

 farms in southern France determine its rental value and 

 form a chief source of income to the tenant. In parts of 

 France, Italy and other countries chestnuts furnish flour 

 for bread for man, and chestnuts and acorns furnish forage 

 for animals. Prof. J. Russell Smith relates that when he 

 stopped at the house of the mayor of a little town in Corsica 

 the mayor went to a bin and brought out a measure of chest- 

 nuts to feed the horse. 



In Mediterranean countries the almond is an important 

 crop for home use and export. 



In our own country the walnut, almond and filbert on 

 the Pacific coast are becoming industries of national value. 

 In 1912 they produced 3,000 tons of almonds and 11,250 

 tons of walnuts. 



In the south the development of the pecan, and of the 

 pecan industry, is one of the wonders of horticulture. 

 Barely twelve years ago the propagation of the pecan was 

 practically unknown, and seedling trees the sole dependence. 

 'Now thousands of acres are occupied with tens of thou- 

 sands of trees, grafted or budded from selected wild trees. 

 These wonderful pecans, that hardly any of us northerners 

 have ever seen, so different from the grocery store pecan, 

 and that fetch up to 50 cents or more a pound in the home 

 markets of the south, are not artificial hybrids, the result 

 of man's scientific work, but nature's own product which has 

 been merely propagated and perpetuated by the art of man. 

 The same process is awaited by the native nuts of the north. 

 The walnut growers of the Pacific coast and the pecan 

 gi'owers of the south have shown us the way. 



The entire success of nut growing depends on the art of 

 propagation. To get trees bearing true to type, and as early 

 as the apple, we must set grafted or budded trees, just as 

 with the apple. ISTo one should think of setting an orchard of 

 seedling nuts any more than an orchard of seedling apples 

 or peaches. Of course the development of new varieties 

 must come from raising seedling trees by planting nuts. 



