ON NUT GROWING 



even to Canada. Meantime, the use of nuts on the 

 table in all parts of the United States has become 

 more and more habitual, and the shell fruits are 

 beginning to take their proper place among the 

 important products of the soil. Their recognition 

 as really valuable foods is so comparatively recent, 

 however, that it would not be superfluous to briefly 

 run over the list of commercial nuts, with refer- 

 ence 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 sev- 

 eral 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 cocoanuts, not to mention 

 several less known and little used species. 



The cocoanut, the fruit of a palm tree, is 

 indigenous to tropical and sub-tropical 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 



[13] 



