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 Curer MarKetas_e Nvts 
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] 
