THE ALMOND. 19 



expense of gathering the nut is thereby materially reduced. This can only be secured 

 with any degree of certainty by planting blocks or rows of grafted or budded trees. 

 If all fallen leaves and other hindrances are kept removed from beneath the trees at 

 harvest time the work of gathering the nuts is facilitated. F. A. Swinden, of Brown- 

 wood, Tex., a prominent pecan planter, announces his intention of using a street 

 sweeper which will gather the nuts into windrows, after which they will be gathered 

 up and run through a machine for sorting and cleaning. But to what extent machin- 

 ery may be profitably used in harvesting or preparing nuts for market is yet an 

 unsettled question. 



MARKETING. 



At the present time the country store is the medium through which much of the 

 wild-nut product finds its way to the city market. The storekeeper puts into barrels 

 or boxes his weekly accumulation of nuts, often taken in exchange for goods, and con- 

 signs them to a commission merchant or wholesale dealer in the city. When stock is 

 scarce, as is generally the case at the beginning of the season, the commission men 

 are able to return much better figures for consignments than after every merchant has 

 stock to offer. Hence, other things being equal, the early nut of its kind brings most 

 to the producer, both because of its superior freshness and of the scarcity of new stock 

 in the market. When the crop of wild nuts is large, as is sometimes the case with 

 the hickory in the central Western States, dealers scour the country and buy them up 

 in car-load lots for shipment to the cities. Undoubtedly with nuts, as with other 

 fruits,'when the quantity is large enough in one place to attract many buyers, compe- 

 tition among purchasers will raise the price. If a community of producers will unite 

 on ordinary business principles, and assort and grade the nuts to recognized stand- 

 ards, still higher prices may be obtained. Close grading, honest packing, and auction 

 sales at the place of production combine the points in marketing best calculated to 

 effect the prompt and wide distribution of horticultural products and will probably 

 yield the most satisfactory returns to the producer. 



THE ALMOND." 



(Amygdalus commuiiis L.) 



Of our introduced nut-bearing trees, perhaps none has occasioned more disappoint- 

 ment among planters in the United States than the almond. It has been said that it 

 will grow wherever the peach will thrive. So far as the growth of the tree and the 

 production of blossoms are concerned this is to some extent true; but in fruit produc- 

 tion the valuable varieties of the almond fail in most of our Eastern peach districts, 

 and but little attempt is now made by growers outside of California to produce this nut. 

 Some forty years ago a large importation of soft shelled almonds was made by the 

 Commissioner of Patents for distribution among fruit growers. Both nuts and trees 

 were widely distributed to growers in the Southern and Middle States. Dowuing, like 

 other pomologists of his day, was hopeful of the results of their introduction, and said: 1 

 " There is no apparent reason why the culture of the almond should not be pursued 

 to a profitable extent in the warm climate of the Southern States. Especially in the 

 valleys of the Ohio and Tennessee it would be likely to succeed admirably." 



'AMERICAN ALMOND. Synonym: Desert plum. (Amygdalus Andersonii Greene.) This almond is a 

 native of America, and, though of no present pomological value, seems deserving of mention in this 

 place. It is quite common among the rocky hills of southern California which inclose the Colorado 

 desert. It is a low, bushy shrub, seldom attaining to the height of a man. It blooms there in Febru- 

 ary, with abundance of rose-red blossoms; the fruit is a small, velvety drupe, scarcely more than half 

 an inch long, which, when ripe, divests itself of its thin, fleshy, external coat, much like the common 

 almond, and exposes a small, nearly smooth nut. So far as we are aware, little effort has yet been 

 made to cultivate it. 



1 Fruits and Fruit Trees of America. 



