The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-12-19
BIG PROFIT IN NUTS.
Filberts viii Grow Well in
Puget Sound Country.
CULTivATlNG THE HlcKoRYTREE
Importations VIII Soon Characterization
of Seeds for Planting and Care
of the Growing Germ.


| ton Star reporter. Before long, however,
| 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 is
| necessarily diminishing in proportion from
| year TO year This Is especially true Of the
| pecan, which the pickers are fond of col
| Letting by cutting down the trees--a pro-
| ceeding that naturally lessons the produc-
| ton of subsequent seasons.
/ at is only within the last ten years that
! nut culture has been tried in this country
| but it is being widely taken up because of
| the large proats obtained from it, ana great
| orchards of hundreds and even thousands
| of trees are growing or being planted on
| every hand. In central California almond
| groves of from 1900 to 5000 trees are not
| unusual, and in the southern part of the
| same state the English walnut, properly
called the Madeira nut, is already extern
| sively raised. The English walnut is
| grown also for market in most of the
| other states and on Staten Island it is
cultivated and sold green for pickles and
catsup. The pecan is grown in orchards
| in the South and Southwest, and the
! pinon, or pine nut, though quite unknown
| TO people east of the Mississippi, is pro-
| duced in immense quantities on the Pacihc
! slope. Wonderful results are obtained
with nuts by selection and proper graft
ing. With such care they increase sur
/ prisingly in size and become thin shelled
| Here, for example, are some pecans.
| don't wonder that you are astOnished at
! their bigness. The pecans you are accus-
/ toned to see have been wild ones, whereas
| these are cultivated specimens. You will
| observe that they are five or six times as
big as the ordinary nuts and their shells
are so thin that you will notice / break
| this one easily between my thumb and I'm
| ger, just as | would peanut.
''The chestnut is susceptible of the same
sort of Improvement and in not less degree.
1t is beginning to be extensively planted
and is found most profitable agricultural
| product. You are familiar with the chest
nut called the maroon that we import
from abroad. 1t is grown III China and
Japan, as well rs in France, Spain, Italy
and Portugal. In point of flavor it does
not nearly equal the American chestnut,
! bat it has 4 great advantage III point of
size, being as big as horse chestnut
| Now, we can grow these marrons per-
fectly 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 plentiful native
crop. There are some choice varities of
! American chestnuts, grown mostly along
the Appalachian range in North Carolina,
| Georgia and as far north as New York,
which are nearly as big as the foreign kind.
Here are a few that You see are quite an
inch and a half in diameter. These are
chestnuts well worth cultivating. There
is plenty OF waste land lying about that
could be made admirable use of for chest
| nut plantations, and when | tell you that
Il single tree can be made to bear from $40
to 500 worth of the nuts each year You vii!
! perceive that the business OF raising nuts
IS well worth the farmers attention.
"The pecan is nut of the future, and
| the Southern planters who are setting out
great orchards of pecan trees now will
| reap big fortunes few years hence.
There is one man in Florida who has a
! grove of 1000 pecan trees of fine varieties
| nearly all of them grated, six years old
and seven to eight feet high. When they
get to bearing he will have a big thing. A
grown pecan tree Will produce two barrels
of nuts yearly, and those nuts will sell at
SIS barrel wholesale. That viii mean an
income for the proprietor of the grove
| / refer to OF considerable more
than 100000 n year. Seeding pecans
may turn out very well, but the
only sure way is 10 graft. Plantations of
pecans are being started nilmeTously in
Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana and
Mississippi. In California they are just
beinning to be cultivated in orchards OF
from 100 to 2Cj acres. There are about
fifty different varieties of pecans that |
know of The finest specimens now pro-
duced come from the neighborhood of
Ocean Springs, Miss. OF course you
know that the pecan is purely an Ameri-
can nut; il only grows on this continent.
In the West Indies, however they are try
shall DOUBTLESS export large quantities of
pecans.
Hickory nuts are beginning to be Guilt
waited also. Some of the wild shagbarks
are very big and fine, and, starting with
them, crops of excellent quality ought to
be obtained. We have received reports OF
hickory nuts that used to grow III a GER
tain region of the West which are six
inches in diameter. but the trees that bore
them were all cut down Il few years ago. |
believe this to be an exaggeratlon. Posi-
/ bly, the nuts described were as much as
three inches in diameter. myself nave
j. seen them as much as two and half
| inches. 1t is in the Wabash valley OF In
diana that the biggest hickory nuts grow.
1.-The so-called English walnut is begin
ming to be raised on an extensive scale IN
the United States, and the cultivation
promises also TO be 4 large industry N the
not very distant future. Madeira nuts, as
thew 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 1t IS for this
reason that they are known here as kngllsh
| walnuts The trees grow and bear excel
lently in this country. | know OF one III
/ this city on Eleventh street, near VI. But
it is in California that the business of rails
ing them has arrived at Importance. In
the southern part OF that state. particularly
in the neighbOrhood of Los Angeles. thous-
ands of tons of the finest varieties are pro-
duced by great plantations originally start
ed from seed In New Mexico, Arizona
and southwest Texas Madeira nuts do eX-
cellentlv also They must have rich land.
California is also producing almonds
on an immense scale. One man in that
state has nearly two square miies planted
with the trees Of this nut. Almonds grow
as we'll iii California as anywhere, and
they VIII eventually drive out the foreign
product altogether. They Will not do ~eI
east OF the Rockies, and our supply OF the
future viii be drawn entirely from Iail-
fornia. though il may be that southwest
Texas will prove suitable for their cultiva-
ton also.
The hazel nut viii before long he INTRO
duced largely as a commercial product.
There are now millions of atTeS m Ihls
country Of Wild hazel brush, which Is a
shrub about as high Is your head. The
hazel nut is a species belonging 70 the
same genus as the nlbert. As Tor tht