14 
J. F. JONES NURSERIES, LANCASTER, PA. 
YIELDS AND PROFIT 
We are often asked how much certain trees will bear in a given time 
and the amount in money a person can realize for the crop. No one can 
tell what any certain tree or trees will bear at a given age, because condi¬ 
tions are too varied, but we can estimate the crop in a general way. Good 
budded or grafted trees of good bearing varieties of nut trees when properly 
planted and cared for until 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 1000 good grafted trees 
of the black walnut and give the trees proper care until established they will 
return a net profit of $3,000. at 10 to 12 years of age. If the nuts are cracked 
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 crackeries 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 
production 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 
insects and disease 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 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 of the fruit, even 
though returns do not justify the expense, because if left to shift for them¬ 
selves, fruit orchards are soon gone and the investment is lost. 
