20 NUT GROWING 



whisky-cursed, law-breaking mountaineers of Appa- 

 lachia and the comfortable, prosperous inhabitants of 

 similar but less favored slopes in Corsica. I have 

 traversed miles of mountain slope in Corsica hav- 

 ing the angle of a house roof. The slope was steep 

 but a good road wound in and out along its face. 

 At intervals we passed through villages of substan- 

 tial stone houses with well built churches, well 

 stocked stores, and often comfortable inns." 



This relates to a country much like our southern 

 Appalachian region but devoted almost wholly to 

 chestnut trees. One may travel for many miles in 

 Corsica finding hardly a break in the continuous 

 orchards of grafted chestnut trees supporting a dense 

 population in comfort. When the blight from China 

 strikes these trees the people skilled in chestnut grow- 

 ing may import blight-resistant hybrids developed 

 in America and in that way avoid permanent loss. 



Our agriculture in North America represents a 

 tradition from level lands and dating back to the 

 days of savages when men had to devote most all 

 of their time to killing each other along with other 

 large and small game while women raised small 

 annual crops of grains. In those days the kaleido- 

 scopic shifting of tribes was inimical to tree culture 

 but fitted better into the cultivation of annual plants. 

 The effect of tradition is so strong that in the Chi- 

 nese Empire men crowd certain areas and develop 

 intensive agriculture suitable to the crowd life. On 

 the other hand, not far away from some of the Chi- 

 nese cities tigers and leopards menace the herdsman's 



