Pawpaw unless to use it to brush off flies. 
You will probably need two trees for 
pollination. If space is close, they can be 
planted within a couple of feet of each 
other and will fuse into one clump. In 
nature they have a tendency to grow in 
thickets. 
I do not know that the soil require- 
ments are peculiar. It stands out in my 
open cow pasture, but an annual mulching 
of leaves 3 or 4 feet in diameter and 
allowed to rot, would make close re- 
semblance to its commonest habitat. 
These trees are not easy to transplant 
and therefore they need as much care for 
the first two years as a Persimmon or 
Hickory. (V, IV, west of Lake Erie.) 
The Mulberry 
If you love birds or small boys or hens 
to the point of wishing to have them 
around, you should have at least one Mul- 
berry tree on the premises. I have one in 
my yard that yields fruit from late May 
until mid August, and this fruit is 
harvested without any trouble to me by 
birds, boys, and hens. The Mulberry is also 
good for grownups to eat as well as for 
boys, and when I want to have a dish of 
Mulberries and cream, I spread a large 
sheet under a Mulberry tree, shake the 
fruit onto it, then roll the Mulberries into 
a pan. 
Some people think that it is a fine thing 
to have a Mulberry tree so that the birds 
will eat the Mulberries instead of cherries. 
I don’t vouch for this, but certainly the 
birds like Mulberries. 
The Mulberry tree is one of the most 
fruitful trees known, particularly the 
everbearing varieties, like the ones 
which I offer. Perhaps one reason the tree 
is able to produce such quantities of fruit 
is the fact that it never carries its whole 
crop at one time. While some Mulberries 
are ripe, 14 inches long, as thick as your 
little finger, others are little embryos 
about the size of a grain of wheat, so that 
the tree that produces a half ton of fruit 
may never have more than 200 pounds on 
at one time. 
They are certainly a good use to make 
of the poultry yard space because the 
chickens love to pick them up and eat 
them. 
In parts of North Carolina an acre or 
so of Mulberries is a common part of the 
system for providing the family pork. I 
have seen farmer after farmer in that 
state who was perfectly sure that an acre 
of everbearing Mulberries, with its 10 to 
12 weeks of automatic pig feeding, did 
him as much good as an acre of corn—and 
note this—the pigs did the harvesting, 
while the trees needed no cultivation. 
The tree is easy to transplant, a rapid 
grower, and a great encouragement to the 
beginning horticulturist because, in addi- 
tion to these qualities, it gets into bearing 
very early, and sometimes it will make a 
second set of buds if the frost kills the 
first ones. 

Honey Locust 
When it comes to awarding the first 
prize for neglected opportunities in Ameri- 
can crop plants, we would have a hard run 
between the Persimmon and the Honey 
Locust, but I think the prize goes to the 
Honey Locust because of its great promise 
as a forage crop and possibly a National 
sugar supply. 
The Honey Locust tree bears beans. 
Some of them are long beans having 
sugary nutriment in the pods around the 
seeds. Indeed, the Honey Locust pod is one 
of the richest sugar plants known, and 
the beans from thousands of different 
trees in half a dozen different states have 
been greedily eaten by cattle for decades. 
and the farmer did not seem to see that 
here was a great potential crop. 
Stock Food That Grows on Trees 
and Has No Harvest Cost 
Some years ago I offered prizes for the 
best beans and one lot measured 16 inches 
long, weighed 17 to the pound when bone 
dry and analyzed 29% sugar. Further 
search has brought in beans analyzing 
35% sugar. The seed is high in protein. 
In rare trees it is embedded in sugary 
pulp that is sometimes sticky like honey. 
That explains why children and farm 
stock eat these pods so keenly. Millions 
of children have eaten them. Miss 
Williams, the owner of a 400-aere farm in 
Georgia, reports that she has “a great 
many trees in pastures where the cattle 
can pick up the pods as they fall.” She 
makes it a point to set out young trees 
whenever labor is available in the spring. 
She also collects pods from trees growing 
in situations other than pastures and 
grinds many of these into a cattle meal. 
She states that by grinding the pods, 
the seeds are made available for food. She 
has been utilizing Honey Locust pods for 
many years. 
20 
