SPECIALIST 
NUT TREE 
11 
fully up to those bought in the market. 1 have not as yet decided whether or 
ntt it can be profitably grown here, but see no reason why it may not.” Si r. 
Wight is a large and very successful grower of pecans. 
THE EUROPEAN FILBERT can be grown where the English walnut suc¬ 
ceeds, except that it does not do well in the lower south, and the tree requires 
well drained locations for best results. 
Yields and Profit 
I am sometimes asked what a pecan, English or black walnut tree will 
produce at a given age. No one can tell what any certain tree or trees will 
bear at a given age, because conditions are too varied, but we can estimate the 
crop in a general way. Good budded or grafted trees of good bearing varieties 
of these nuts, when properly planted and cared for till the trees are well 
■established, will begin bearing about as early as the apple and should produce 
profitable crops as soon as the trees are large enough to carry good crops of 
nuts. On rich land, this should be about as early as the apple. 
It is conservatively estimated that if one plant, say, 1000 good budded or 
grafted trees of the pecan, English or black walnut, (or some of each) and 
give the trees proper care till established, that they will return a net profit of 
at least $3000.00 a year at 10 to 12 years of age and the yield will increase 
rapidly with the growth of the trees and should reach at least $10,000 a year 
when the trees are in good bearing. If the nuts are cracked and the kernels 
marketed, the income should be considerably larger than this. It is felt that 
the above estimate is very conservative, and 1 believe that this is so, as I know 
several trees the crop of which sells for $100.00 or more in a single year. Esti¬ 
mating an orchard on the basis of these trees, (and there is no good reason 
why we can’t duplicate them or even beat them) profits would be very large, as 
the cost of growing is practically nothing, and the nuts, falling to the ground 
when ripe, are easily and cheaply gathered and are not perishable, but may be 
sold as they come from the trees or they may be cracked and the kernels sold 
at one’s leisure, during the fall and winter months. Every year sees a large 
increase in the quantity of nuts cracked, and eventually they will be sold that 
way almost entirely. 'The average person will not cat very many nuts if they 
have to crack them, but if they are cracked and put on the market in a readily 
usable form, the demand will be practically unlimited. Remarkably efficient 
power crackers have been invented and are now in use cracking pecans, and 
it is believed that just as good one’s will he devised for cracking good black 
walnuts and other nuts as soon as we have them in sufficient quantify to 
justify the manufacture of such machines. Eventually, nut crackeries will he 
in operation all over the country and those having only a few hundred pounds 
o: nuts or those who prefer to sell their product as they come from the trees, 
can dispose of their product readily and without the trouble of bagging and 
shipping them. 
Some people, in investigating the possibilities in growing nuts, compare 
production and sales per acre with those of the best apple or peach oichaids. 
Unless one knows what the fruit grower is up against in his ii-lit with insect 
pests and diseases, the comparison is not a fair one. It is not what a crop 
sells for that determines the profit or the satisfaction of growing. W ith half 
the gross sales per acre, a nut orchard might show more net profit, and the 
crop is certainly more satisfactory to grow and handle. Also, the nut trees 
require comparatively little care or attention and are permanent, outliving 
several generations of fruit trees. When fruit is low in price, the fruit grower 
must go ahead with the necessary spraying, pruning, cultivation and thinning 
cr the fruit, even though returns do not justify the expense, because if left to 
shift for themselves, fruit orchards are soon gone and the investment is lost. 
On the other hand, nut orchards, while the trees respond to manuring or added 
soil fertility, in increased growth and bearing, the trees will go along in good 
shape without, and if the land on which they arc growing is naturally rich or 
has been previously made so by manuring or the growing of leguminous crops, 
