OCTOB EH, 19 18 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



87 



pend each from sleeper or other support in base- 

 ment or outhouses. 



Rhubarb. Choose the largest, most vigorous 

 plants of rhubarb for storing, or forcing in the 

 cellar or basement. Previous to the first freeze 

 of late fall, usually about December first, lift 

 roots of the plants desired, preferably designated 

 by stakes of some sort, each with a clump of soil 

 attached. Allow roots lifted to remain near the 

 plot or move them to a convenient place where 

 they are subject to the first freeze of winter. 

 Take frozen roots to the cellar and place them in 

 an easily darkened corner in an upright position 

 as close to each other as possible. Cover to a 

 depth of two or three inches with light soil work- 

 ing same down well among the roots. Water 

 thoroughly and shut out all light by means of a 

 black cloth. Keep the soil fairly moist and har- 



vest the forced crops as stems attain the desired 

 size. Harvesting may usually start in from 3 to 5 

 weeks following setting. Stems of forced rhu- 

 barb will be very crisp and tender with little or 

 no green leaf attached. 



Parsnips and Salsify. Since parsnips and 

 salsify are not injured by freezing they may be 

 left in rows in the garden for late spring use. 

 In case they are desired for table use or market 

 during winter, dig and handle as other root crops 

 in the cellar store room. 



Sweet Potatos, Pumpkins, and Squashes. 

 These three crops keep best at practically the 

 same temperature 50-55° and with a relatively 

 low amount of moisture present. All must be 

 handled with extreme care to prevent bruising. 



Avoid placing in storage sweet potatoes which 



have been nipped by frost. In case light frost 

 gets the crop cut and remove vines from the plot 

 and dig the tubers at the earliest convenience 

 following. Store temporarily in an outhouse 

 where an old heating stove may be used if nec- 

 essary to keep the temperature at approximately 

 75° for 10 days' time or until curing or sweating 

 has finished. Place the crop in a dry storeroom 

 where the temperature may be held at or near 55° 

 throughout the winter. Available space in an 

 ordinary furnace room answers satisfactorily. 



Pumpkins and squashes each handled carefully 

 from field to storeroom keep well laid on shelves 

 near the furnace where the temperature may be 

 held as for sweet potatoes. Use caution that 

 stems be not severed from the fruits in harvest- 

 ing and avoid storing the fruits in piles or heaps. 

 Rather, see that they rest in single layers. 



Nut Trees as Food Producers robert t. morris 



New 

 York 



THE reason for nut trees not being 

 planted more largely in this country 

 is similar to the reason for the auto- 

 mobile not being in use twenty-five 

 years ago: People had not thought much about 

 the subject. The time is coming when nut trees 

 will bear as important a relation to our food sup- 

 ply as the automobile does to transportation. 

 The reason for that is because nut trees in their 

 great range of food sup- 

 ply are capableof giving 

 us enjoyable calories 

 which will replace in 

 substantial degree our 

 nitrogenous and starchy 

 foods of the old-fash- 

 ioned sort. 



My interest in the 

 subject is not that of 

 an erratic, but only that 

 of a red squirrel who 

 knows a good thing 

 when he sees it. When 

 the era of nut trees has 

 arrived we may have 

 Professor J. Russell 

 Smith's three-story 

 garden if you like — 

 trees overhead, vegeta- 

 bles on theground floor, 

 and mushrooms in the 

 cellar beneath. That, 

 however, will belong to 

 the days when popula- 

 tion is so great that 

 we shall seriously con- 

 sider Dr. Oliver Wen- 

 dell Holmes's idea that 

 people must all sit in 

 each other's laps. 



As a practical matter of fact nuts of the 

 highly nitrogenous type are at present used 

 chiefly as a luxury, although they are entering 

 more and more into food combinations. Starchy 

 nuts in some parts of the world furnish the chief 

 food supply; for example, the chestnuts of Italy 

 and of Japan. Nuts of the starchy and oily 

 type, like those of some of the Pine trees, furnish 

 an important food supply in parts of South Amer- 

 ica and Australia and of Our Southwest. The 

 British Government has reserved one forest of 

 Bunya Bunya Pines, thirty miles in length by 

 twelve miles in width, for food purposes; and in 

 the mountains of Chili forests of Imbricated Pines 

 have furnished the cause for competitive warfare 

 between Indian tribes for centuries. 



One reason why the worn-out pastures of New 

 York and New England are not yielding fifty 

 dollars' worth of nuts per acre per year is because 

 the effort required would be so much less than the 

 effort required for obtaining twenty-five dollars 



per year per acre for crops of old-fashioned food- 

 stuffs. The proposition is such an easy one that 

 men look askance at it. Down in Louisiana they 

 tell of an old colored man who had always worked 

 very hard at raising cotton and corn on his little 

 property and managed to give his family a fair 

 living during his days of greatest activity. Now, 

 however, that he is old and all crippled up with 

 rheumatism and no longer able to work, six 



Aside from the utility features of nut trees 

 for food supply purposes we may return to the 

 old Greek ideal of combining beauty with utility, 

 and nut trees ranging from a Sugar Pine two hun- 

 dred and fifty feet in height down to the Alder- 

 leaved Chestnut with its glistening branches 

 trailing over the ground furnish opportunity for 

 beautifying large landscape and small garden as 

 they have never been beautified before by the hand 

 of man. At the present 

 time, the nurserymen 

 furnish annually mil- 

 lions of bunches of 

 leaves to customers 

 who call for the Poplars 

 and Willows and Maples 

 which are worthy 

 enough of respect on 

 the ground of beauty 

 alone, butwhich furnish 

 no lead for the keel 

 when we are sailing to- 

 ward a utility goal. 

 And there are a number 

 of nurserymen who 

 make a specialty of 

 growing grafted and 

 otherwise selected nut 

 trees of the most valu- 

 able sorts. 



Food Values of 

 Nuts 



r 



with 

 the 



Various Kinds of Walnuts. — Because of their variation. Walnuts should be bought as definitely as apples or other orchard 

 fruit. From left hand top reading across: Prolific, Regal, Bijou, Paradox, Frangueth, Mayeth, Mandshurica, Nigra, Chester and 

 Sorrento. Reduced about one-third 



pecan trees which he planted bring his family 

 three times as large an income as he was able to 

 obtain when laboring. The same story might 

 as well come out of New England at some later 

 day. Many a farmer has to work so hard in 

 order to pay the interest on his mortgage that he 

 has no time to stop and think. If he has the luck 

 to break a leg, or otherwise become confined in 

 such a way that he must think, he can easily 

 enough obtain a first-rate income without much 

 work, from nut trees. The range through chest- 

 nuts, walnuts, hickories, pines, and hazels offers 

 endless variety for engaging one's interest. 

 There are perhaps no food crops of any sort 

 which will furnish larger average yield to the acre 

 than nu£ crops, and if the Prussian Government 

 were to devote itself to intensive cultivation of 

 this sort of food supply, there might be little 

 hunger for expansion; incidentally, any lust for 

 killing would find ample outlet among the bugs 

 and blights. 



N connection 

 the foregoing 

 accompanying table of 

 comparisons should be 

 stimulative to the plan- 

 ter. Nut trees are use- 

 ful also as ornamentals and surely it is not neces- 

 sary to make a special plea for " Killing two birds 

 with one stone" as the popular saying runs. 



Fuel value 



Almond . 

 Beechnut 

 Brazilnut 

 Butternut 

 Chestnut, fresh 

 Chestnut, dry 

 Cocoanut 

 Filbert 



Hickorynut . 

 Peanut 

 Pecan 

 Pinenut . 

 Pistachio 

 Walnut . . 

 Round steak . 

 Cheddar cheese 

 Eggs, boiled . 

 Wheat flour . 

 White bread . 

 Beans, dried . 

 Potatoes . 

 Apples 

 Raisins 



;r cent. 



Per cent. 



per cent. 



-'rotein 



Fat. 



Calories 



21.4 



54-4 



2,895 



21.8 



49.9 



2,740 



17-4 



65.0 



3,120 



27.9 



61.2 



3,170 



6.4 



6.0 



1,140 



10.7 



7-8 



1,840 



6.6 



56.2 



2,805 



16.5 



64.0 



3,100 



15.4 



67.4 



3,345 



29.8 



43-S 



2,610 



12. 1 



70.7 



3,300 



33-9 



48.2 



2,710 



22.6 



54- S 



3,250 



18.2 



60.7 



3P75 



19.8 



13.6 



950 



27.7 



36.8 



2,145 



12.4 



10.7 



680 



11. 4 



1 .0 



1,650 



9.2 



1.3 



1,215 



22. s 



1.8 



1,60s 



2.2 



.1 



385 



• 4 



• 5 



290 



2.6 



3-3 



1,605 





