140 NUT GROWING 



were three hundred acres in the orchard. This nut 

 grower's profit represented original investment that 

 would be considerably less than the average expense 

 of preparation for a young man in one of the learned 

 professions, and there are few men in learned pro- 

 fessions who can count upon an income of thirty 

 thousand dollars a year. 



It is commonly a matter of witticism to remark 

 that a man plants nut trees for his grandchildren. As 

 a matter of fact some of the Oriental chestnuts will 

 bear a burr in the second year, even as seedlings. 

 Many of the hybrid chestnut seedlings will bear in 

 the second or third year and a number of different 

 varieties and species of grafted walnuts and hickories 

 will begin to bear from the second to the fourth year 

 after they have been transplanted. Old trees that 

 have been top-worked and already have a well estab- 

 lished root system will sometimes allow the varieties 

 which have been grafted upon them to bear freely 

 two years after the top-working. Much depends 

 upon the species. A hybrid chestnut scion which 

 was grafted upon a Chinese chestnut in the middle 

 of May bore two burrs with nuts that were picked 

 in the middle of September of the same year. One 

 of the hickories, the Hales, on the other hand, has 

 been known to require fifteen years after grafting to 

 come into bearing. As a rule, however, we may 

 compare nut trees pretty closely with apple trees. 

 The Yellow Transparent apple commonly comes into 

 bearing in the second year after it is transplanted, 

 while the Northern Spy may not bear until ten or 



