Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting: Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 — John Shaqi
Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting: Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting: Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
The evergreen oak of southern Europe is highly prized for its acorns. I
have seen large areas of bearing trees. I have been told time and again
that they bear at a comparatively early age. The oak is capable of
grafting, about as easily as the chestnut. I have seen them grafted, all
the way from those of this spring up to three hundred years old. The
number of trees grafted is small, but that in no way affects the
possibilities. Certain varieties are prized as much as chestnuts, or
even more, and the price of acorns is set by the price of chestnuts,
just as the price of cornmeal sets the price for chestnut meal. I never
got crop records for a solid acre of oak trees, but the performance of
individual trees gives rise to the belief that the acorn crop in Europe
and America is worthy of careful study. I saw a tree--a single
tree--that I was assured bore more than twelve hundred quarts in a
single year, thirty-seven bushels. It is hard to get the yield in a
large forest, but this tree was alone. Its sweep was seventeen yards,
its yearly production seemed to average over twenty bushels, which was
worth as much as an acre of corn in any of our states. Wherever I found
an isolated tree, I found its production to be surprisingly large, and I
got my information from a variety of sources. It seemed to be one of the
most important forage trees.
As to the Persian walnut, it is reported to be a small nut of almost no
value in its wild state. It grows around the world between the belt of
the orange and the belt of the white pine. It is unknown as a crop in
large areas in Europe, where it might be grown successfully. In Italy
there is only an occasional tree, and it is not grown much in Portugal
or Spain.
It has centers in Europe as crops have in the United States and for the
same reason--someone started the industry. The activities of Mr. Pomeroy
have stimulated its growth in his immediate locality. When any one
succeeds in a certain line, we find people about him taking up the same
line and they conclude that this product can only be produced in that
particular locality. This is usually not so at all. The thing that
happened was that some one showed them that this soil would produce this
thing. Near Naples there is a walnut boom. The value of the walnut as a
crop is shown by the fact that market gardens producing three crops a
year under irrigation are being planted to English walnuts. I have been
told time and again that this is a very profitable crop. In this walnut
district they have planted whole hillsides to olives and walnuts
alternately, sometimes mixed up, sometimes twenty acres solid. In some
places they can only be cultivated with the hoe, a very distinctly
un-American job, and yet the English walnut seems to pay the people
under those conditions of labor. It is spreading over that peninsula and
you find it spreading in the lowlands. They trim the tree up to
twenty-five feet, so that teams can drive below.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account