NUTS AND NUT CULTURE. 51 



The fruit merchants usually keep perishable fruits in their stores 

 by means of large earthen jars with very thick walls. Broken ice is 

 put in the bottom of the jar and upon this are placed woven wicker 

 baskets in which the fruit is kept. The jar is closed with a wooden 

 cover that often has a strip of felt around it. It is remarkable how 

 well such a simple contrivance serves its purpose. 



To obtain the necessary ice there is great activity in the neighbor- 

 hood of cities and villages in the winter time. Ice even as thin as half 

 an inch is gathered. It is stored in houses with very thick mud walls 

 and kept there nearly the whole year. 



NUTS AND NUT CULTURE. 



Nuts are appreciated by the Chinese to the same extent that they 

 are all over the world, but nut culture is as little practiced in China 

 as it is elsewhere, for nut-bearing trees and shrubs seem to have the 

 reputation of not needing much cultivation. One therefore finds 

 that a great many of the various nuts obtained in China have been 

 collected from trees and shrubs in a wild or semiwild state. 



The nuts which came under the writer's observation are as follows: 



WALNUTS. 



[Chinese name, "Ho to."] 



The walnut (Juglans regia sinensis) is a native of northern China 

 and thrives to perfection in the rich, loamy soil of some of the broad, 

 sheltered valleys of that country. In some sections the trees are 

 grown in regular orchards, in other localities one finds them planted 

 here and there as solitary specimens. The latter practice is especi- 

 ally common in the narrow mountain valleys, where terraces have 

 often been made to supply the trees with a sufficient quantity of soil. 



The Chinese have not learned the art of grafting or budding the 

 walnut, and all the trees, therefore, are seedlings. Hence, there is an 

 enormous variation in the habits of the trees and in the size and 

 quality of the nuts. In some sections very superior strains of nuts 

 exist, while elsewhere the quality is poor. In the vicinity of Changli, 

 Chihli Province, there are some walnut orchards in which the trees 

 vary to a remarkable degree. Some produce small hard-shelled nuts 

 of poor flavor, while others bear fine large nuts, with a really tine 

 flavor, and having shells so thin that they can be cracked with the 

 fingers like a peanut. Between these extremes one finds many 

 gradations in hardness of shell, size, and flavor. It is very likely 

 that some kinds of these Chinese nuts may prove to be much hardier 

 than our present Persian strain of walnuts and in all probability they 

 will thrive especially well in certain sections of the southern Rocky 

 Mountain region. (S. P. I. Nos. 17745, 17746, 17943 to 17946, 

 18256, 18257, 18263, 18603, and 18604.) 



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