American citizen., 1875-02-27
Forest Fruits.

MR. GEORGE MAY POWELL, Chairman
of the Forestry Committee, read the fol
lowing paper on nuts before a recent
meeting of the American Institute:
Among the most interesting and prac
tical questions connected with Dendrol-
ogy is the cultivation of nuts. These de-
licious forest fruits have long been a very
important element in home consumption.
They are destined to be with us, as they
are with neighbOring nations, an impor-
tant element of export trade. Nearly all
the nut-bearing trees are among the most
valuable for timber on account of beauty
of color and fiber, as we'll as size and
durability. They are also, without ex-
ception, desirable as ornamental trees or
shrubs. The fact that they are all so
convenient to propagate by seed plant
ing, instead of transplanting, is among
the chief reasons fo- giving this class of
trees the front rank in the forest-creating
campaign which is surely opening before
us as nation. Every step in the march
the campaign will pay. The culture of
nut-bearers will begin to pay with less
expenditure of time than labor directed
in most other directions-pay as nut
culture, at the same time that wealth
of timber for fuel and manufac
turing purposes is being silently
and surely accumulated. In corrob-
Oration of this point of quick
returns, l have the testimony of a gen.
tleman who planted nuts of the filbert
and the Spanish chestnut on Staten
Island, and two years after moved them
to New Jersey. In five years after trans
planting they began to bear. We al
ready have advices of soft shelled al
monds being successfully raised on the
Pacific coast; and as far north as Ger
mantown, in Pennsylvania, the English
walnut is also believed to have been
proved to be profitable to cultivate Tor
its fruits. The following weights, meas
ures and prices of several of the nuts III
the New York market seem not inappro
pirate to incorporate in this paper:
Hickory nuts, $3.50 per bushel; filberts lie per
pound, 40 pounds per bushel; Italian chestnuts,
14c per pound, So pounds per bushel; Grenoble
walnurs, 15c per pound. 80 pounds per bushel;
monds, s5c pei. pound, a5 pounds per bushel;
ternuts, from 81 .25 to g per bushel-
These are wholesale rates. The com
pactness of value is an important ete-
ment in this count. 1t is a type of others
yet TO enter into the solution of the vexed
transportation question. We put the
hickory nut at the head Cf the list as we
believe it is more emphatically than any
other the "national nut" Washington
being SO fond of them as to keep them
among his private camp stores, has made
the world has Il more rich and luscious
flavor. This quality, together with its
hrst-class qualities for transportation,
has already drawn attention to it in the
markets of Europe. 1t only needs pro
ducing and sending forward to take the
place, to great extent, at least, OF hun
dreds of thousands of dollars worth of
nuts of various kinds annually imported
to Great Britain-a nation well and
fnxr I'm
that itdOes not stop for price when it is
pleased. We believe that within half
score of years choice varieties of the
hickory nut tree will be selected and
propagated and called by names, as
young Spitzenberg, and Greening, and
other select kinds of apple trees are now
sold by nurserymen. There are said to
be twenty edible varieties of this nut
now known. If it is true that they do
not produce in kind by seed d-planting,
there is probably greater number. The
best advices we can secure indicate that
there is no great difficulty or uncertainty
in propagating certain varieties by bud
ding or grating. BY building close to
the ground on two-year-old seedlings the
most satisfactory results are likely to be
secured. AS an ornamental tree the
hickory has few equals. The depth of
color and glossy surface Of its large
leaves puts its foliage in the front rank
in respect to beauty. The rustic effect
of its long, shaggy trunk and its fine form
combine other elements also destined to
make it even more of IL favOrlte than 1T
now is with those who plant trees for
either the beauty the trees add to their
estates, for mercenary or for ;esthetical
reasons. Thousands of such hickory
trees are thus adding TO the attractive
ness of the landscape. They are stand
ing, too, in most cases on land which
would otherwise he unproductive. and
also performing the part assigned them
by nature as climatic conservators: and
the fruit of MANY a one OF them has an
annual value equal 10 the net gain from
a dairy COW. 1t does not take a tenth as
much ground to grow in as does the
grass eaten by the cow, and not hun