Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-11-10
A BIG CROP OF NUTS.

A BIG CROP OF NUTS.
The Raising of Them to Be q Great
Industry I'm This Country.
READY LARGE PLANTATIONS OF cHEsTSUTs ARE
oRowISG-Ir Is THE SAME WAY WITH PkcANs IN
THE SOUTH AND wEsr-ESsLIsH wALNUrs,
ALMONDS, HAZEL NUTS AND FrIBERrs
''The era OF nut cultivation in this country
ID just dawning." said Chief Van Deman of the
genealogical division in the Department of
Agriculture yesterday. Before long, how
ever, the growing OF nuts for market will be-
come an enormous industry in the United
States, where now the product depended upon
for consumption is either gathered from wild
trees or imported from abroad. Incidentally
TO the clearing Of the land for settlement nut
bearing trees are being largely wiped out, and
the wild crop il necessarily diminishing in
proportion from year to year. This is especially
true Of the pecan, which the pickers are fond
OF collecting by cutting down the trees-s pro-
ceedlng that naturally lessons the production
OF subsequent seasons.
cit Is only within the last ten wears that nut
culture has been tried in this country but il is
being widely taken up because of the large
profits obtained from il, and great orchards of
hundreds and even thousands of trees are grow
ing or being planted on every hand In CEN
trail California almond groves of from 1000 to
5000 trees are not unusual, and in the southern
part OF the same state the English walnut,
properly called the Madeira nut Ii already
extensively raised The English walnut is
grown also for market in most of the other
states, and on Staten Island il is cultivated and
sold green for pickles and catsup. The pecan
Is grown IN orchards in the south and south
west and the pinon, or pine nut, through quite
unknown to people east of the Mississippi, is
produced IN immense quantities on the Pacific
slope. Wonderful results are obtained with
nuts by selection and proper grating. With
such care they increase surprisingly in size and
become thin shelled. Here, for example, are
some pecans. / don't wonder that you are as
tonished at their bigness The pecans you are
accustomed to see have been wild ones, whereas
these are cultivated specimens. You will OBJ
serve that they are five six times as big as
the ordinary nuts and their shells are SO thin
that you will notice break this one easily be-
tween my thumb and finger, just as l would
peanut
FUTURE OF THE cHEsTNUr.
1.-THE chestnut is susceptible of the same sort
OF Improvements and in not less degree. 1t is
beginning to be extensively planted and is
found q most profitable agricultural product
You are familiar with the chestnut called the
'marron' that we import from abroad. 1t is
grown IN Cnlna anu Japan, as well as In france,
Spain, Italy and Portugal In point of flavor
1t does not nearly equal the American chest
nut, but il has great advantage in point Of
size, being as big as a horse chestnut Now.
we can grow these marrons perfectly well in
this country and are already doing so in the
central states along the Atlantic and as far
west as the Mississippi. Orchards of seedlings
are starting In many places, and before long
the maroon will become q plentiful native crop.
There are some choice varieties Of American
al 81,
range, in North Carolina, Georgia and as far
north as New York, which are nearly as big as
the foreign kind Here arc few that you
see, are quite an inch and a half in diameter.
These are chestnuts well worth Gull
tivating. There is plenty of waste land
lying about that could be made ad-
mirable of for chestnut planta-
tons. and when tell you that a single tree
can be made to bear from $40 to $50 worth OF
the nuts each year you will perceive that the
business of raising nuts is well worth the
farmers attention. It is likely that excellent
results could be secured by cross fertilizing the
marron and the native chestnut, to get the size
OF the former combined with the flavor of the
latter. Indeed, some growers report that they
have already accomplished this The chinquapin
also may perhaps be probably crossed with the
chestnut, to give IL size. 1t has the great ad-
vantage OF being an earlier crop than the
chestnut. Some chinquapins are as big as good
sized chestnuts, and selection and grating
would doubtless accomplish a great deal with
them Already many farmers are going into
the business of growing chestnuts for market,
and II Is sure to be great industry few years
hence. Extensive plantations are being rapidly
developed in Virginia. Maryland and Pennsyl-
vania. Chestnuts are used a staple food in
France, you know. They ought always to be
scalded IN boiling water for a few minutes as
soon as possible after being gathered to kill the
worms and eggs.
FACTS ABOUT THE PECAN.
southern planters who are setting out great
orchards Of pecan trees now will reap big for
tunes few years hence. There is one man in
Florida who has a grove Of 1000 pecan trees of
line varieties, nearly all Of them grated, six
years old and seven to eight feet high When
they get to bearing he will have big thing. A
grown pecan tree will produce two barrels of
nuts yearly, and those nuts will sell at els a
barrel Wholesale. That will mean an income
for the proprietor Of the grove I refer to of
considerable more than Sl00. 900 year. Seed
ling pecans may turn out very well, but the
only sure way is to graft Plantations of pecans
are being started numerously in Georgia,
Alabama, Texas. Louisiana and Mississippi In
California they Just beginning to be cult
waited in orchards of from 100 to 200 acres
There are about fifty different varieties of
pecans that know OF. The finest specimens
now produced come from the neighborhood of
Ocean Springs, Miss. OF course, you know that
the pecan is purely an American nut; it only
grows on this continent In the West Indies,
however, they are trying to introduce it Be-
fore very long we shall doubtless export large
quantities of pecans
Hickory nuts are beginning to be cultivated
also. Some Of the wild shagbsrks are very big
and fine, and, starting with them, crops Of ex-
eellent quality ought to be obtained. We have
received reports Of hickory nuts that used to
grow in q certain region Of the west, which are
six inches in diameter, but the trees that bore
them were all cut down few years ago. be-
heve this to be an exaggeration. Possibly the
nuts described were as much as three inches in
diameter. i myself have seen them as much
two and half inches IL is in the Wabash
valley Of Indiana that the biggest hickory nuts
grow.
ENGLISH wALNUrs AND ALMONDS.
1.-THE so-called English walnut is beginning to
be raised on an extensive scale in the United
States and the cultivation promises also to be
q large industry in the not very distant future.
Madeira nuts, AZ they should be called, are
grown in Spain and Portugal and especially on
the island Of Madeira The nuts reach this
country through British hands. and il is for
this reason that they are known here as English
walnuts. The trees grow and bear excellently
in this country. / know Of one in this city, on
1lth street near NJ. But il is in California that
the business Of raising them has arrived at i'm
portance. In the southern part of that state
particularly in the neighborhood Of Los An
geles, thousands of tons Of the finest varieties
are produced by great plantations originally
startad frO,o aaad Tn Nav Maxico Ari1ona