An economic argument for the general adoption of nuts as a suitable article of food is the enormous increase in food resources which such a change would bring about. Some years ago, an experienced stock-raiser informed the writer that it takes two acres of land and two years to produce a steer weighing 600 pounds when dressed. Fresh meat is three-fourths water; hence the food material actually represented by such an animal would be considerably less than one hundred and fifty pounds, allowing for the weight of the bones. The food value, estimated as dried meat, would be about sixteen hundred calories per pound, or the same as an equal quantity of wheat meal. That is, an acre of land would produce in the form of beef, the food equivalent of seventy-five pounds of wheat in two years, whereas, a single acre of grain would produce on an average, even when poorly cultivated, in two crops not less than thirty-two bushels of more than 1900 pounds of wheat, or more than twenty-five times as much food as the same land would produce in the same length of time in the form of beef. Humboldt showed that the banana would furnish sustenance for twenty-five times as many people as could be nourished by the wheat produced by the same area of land; and according to Hutchinson, the chestnut tree is capable of producing on a given area a still larger amount of nutrient material than the banana. In other words, an acre of ground covered with chestnut trees in full bearing will furnish food for more than six hundred times as many people as could be supported by the same area devoted to meat production. As a source of protein and fats the nut is vastly superior to the ox and the pig. The nut is sweeter, cleaner, safer, healthier and cheaper than any possible source of animal products. This choicest product of Nature's laboratory is just beginning to be appreciated. When the Nut Growers' Association celebrates its one hundredth anniversary, it is safe to predict that the descendants of the present generation of nut growers who have followed the example of their forebears, will be living in opulence and will be regarded as the saviors of their country, while the great abattoirs and meat packing establishments will have ceased to exist, and the merry click of the nut cracker will be heard throughout the land. EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER FROM COLONEL J. C. COOPER, OF McMINNVILLE, OREGON, PRESIDENT OF THE WESTERN WALNUT ASSOCIATION. (Prepared by W. J. SPILLMAN, Chief of the Office of Farm Management U. S. Dept. of Agr., to be read at the 7th Annual Meeting of the N. N. G. A.)