Northern Nut Growers Association, report of the proceedings at the eighth annual meeting: Stamford, Connecticut, September 5 and 6, 1917
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association, report of the proceedings at the eighth annual meeting: Stamford, Connecticut, September 5 and 6, 1917
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
Foresters are now advocating the planting of trees in waste places in
the country, especially about farm buildings. There are, perhaps, no
conspicuous waste places with a greater aggregate area than the strips
along the public highway. In certain foreign countries, these strips are
planted to fruit trees and the right of harvest awarded to the highest
bidder. The revenue so obtained goes a long way toward keeping the
highways in good condition. It is possible that this practice may
sometime be introduced into the United States, but until public opinion
is radically changed, the planting of fruit trees along the highways can
not be expected to yield any satisfactory returns to the public. The
experience of Dr. Morris who planted cherry trees along the public road
past his farm here in Connecticut, where we have just been, is typical
of what, under present conditions, might be expected in any part of the
country. When the cherries were ripe, automobile parties came for many
miles to pick the fruit, and when that in the highway was gone, the
cherries from the nearby orchard were taken. In both cases, the branches
were broken down and the trees left in badly mangled condition. Dr.
Morris then tried nursery-grown and expensive evergreens, but on
Sundays, automobile parties came again with spades and shovels and dug
up the trees.
The ratio of population to tillable land in this country is not such
that, for a long time to come, the American people as a whole will be
pressed into the using of highway land for the production of crops or
into respecting the right of the public to harvest such crops as might
be grown in its highways. Therefore, for the present, except in densely
populated, or in more than ordinarily well regulated communities, it
would be useless to advocate the planting of ordinary fruit trees along
the public roadways.
Irrespective of the possible value of their crops, fruit trees of most
species are both too small and too short-lived to be suitable for
highway planting. With nut trees, the situation is entirely different.
The native walnuts, most species of hickories and the American beech are
large-growing and long-lived trees. In addition, they are capable of
withstanding severe temperatures; they are tough and strong and not
liable to injury by storm or while being climbed by ordinary persons;
and they readily adapt themselves to a wide range of soil, moisture, and
climatic conditions.
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