NUT TREE SPECIALISTS 
15 
and the kernels marketed the income should be considerably larger than this. 
The nuts 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 
eat 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 un¬ 
limited. Remarkably efficient power crackers have been invented and are 
now in use cracking pecans. It is believed that just as good ones will be 
devised for cracking good black walnuts as soon as we have them in sufficient 
quantity to justify the manufacture of such machines. Eventually nut crack- 
eries will be in operation all over the country and those having a few hundred 
pounds of 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 pro¬ 
duction and sales per acre with those of the best apple or peach orchards. Unless 
one knows the trouble and expense a fruit grower has in his fight with in¬ 
sects 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. With 
half the gross sales per acre a nut orchard might show more net profit and 
the crop is certainly more satisfactory to handle. Nut trees require com¬ 
paratively little care or attention and are permanent, outliving several gen¬ 
erations of fruit trees. When fruit is low in price the fruit grower must 
go ahead with the necessary spraying, pruning, cultivation and thinning of 
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. 
At the present time black walnuts of the grafted varieties are selling 
from $4.00 to $8.00 per bushel. Kernels 80c to $1. per lb. The grafted wal¬ 
nuts average 10 lbs of kernels to a bushel of nuts. The present market is re¬ 
tail due to the small amount of nuts to be had as yet from commercial orchards. 
SUPPLY OF TREES 
The demand for certain varieties of trees is something we cannot con¬ 
trol or anticipate. We try always to have a good supply of trees on hand, but 
we often sell out of varieties early and have to return late orders. We ask 
your patience if this should happen to your order. Sometimes we book orders 
for a year ahead and when this is done we return the money sent for the 
customer to hold until time for shipment of the order. We do not want to 
hold money over the summer for any unfilled orders unless it is the wish 
of the customer. 
