8oo 



The National Geographic Magazine 



Power Hoe — Recently invented for use in the cotton fields, and which it is believed will prove 

 equally successful in beet culture 



NUTS AND THEIR USES AS FOOD 



TO the last Year Book of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture Prof. M. E. 

 Jaffa, of the University of California, con- 

 tributes an instructive article on the uses 

 of nuts as food. The early explorers of 

 America were much impressed by the ex- 

 tended use of nuts by the American In- 

 dians. The native hickories, butternuts, 

 walnuts, chestnuts, and man}' other nuts 

 found in the United States were gathered 

 by the natives and formed one of their 

 principal sources of food. The methods 

 of preparing acorns for food, still fol- 

 lowed by the Indians of northern Cali- 

 fornia, are shown in the illustrations on 

 page 797. The shelled nuts are split, 

 dried, and ground with a mortar and 

 pestle. The sifted flour is then placed in 

 a hollow in the sand, on a convenient 

 river bank, and leached to free it from the 

 bitter principles present. Froin the 

 leached meal a porridge or mush is made, 

 which to the ordinary palate is much im- 

 proved by the addition of salt. These 



typical Indian foods, when well prepared, 

 are relished by many persons who have 

 tried them, and it seems not improbable 

 that improved methods of removing tan- 

 nin and the bitter principles present in 

 most varieties of acorns might result in 

 the utilization of the acorn crop, which is 

 fairly large and is generally wasted. 



Lately the use of nuts has greatly in- 

 creased in the United States, with the 

 result that many persons are now grow- 

 ing native and foreign nuts on a commer- 

 cial scale. The quantity of almonds, co- 

 coanuts, Brazil nuts, filberts, peanuts, 

 walnuts, and other nuts, shelled and un- 

 shelled annually imported into the United 

 States is, in round numbers, 90,000,000 

 pounds with a value of $6,250,000. In 

 1905 the total almond crop in California 

 reached 4,200,000 pounds and the walnut 

 crop 12,800,000 pounds. The richest yield 

 of peanuts was reported from the South- 

 ern States, chiefly Virginia, Georgia, and 

 Tennessee, and amounted to 225,000,000 

 pounds. 



