The Nut Culturist: A Treatise on Propogation, Planting, and Cultivation of Nut Bearing Trees and Shrubs Adapted to the Climate of the United StatesFuller, Andrew S. (Andrew Samuel)
Science
The Nut Culturist: A Treatise on Propogation, Planting, and Cultivation of Nut Bearing Trees and Shrubs Adapted to the Climate of the United States
Fuller, Andrew S. (Andrew Samuel)
Nuts
=Cultivation of the Hickories.=--The hickories have been so seldom
planted in our Northern States for any purpose, that anything like a
systematic cultivation of these trees is a thing almost unknown. Of
course there is no good reason why the hickories should not be
multiplied and cultivated as well as other kinds of trees, but in
some unknown way the idea became prevalent that these trees could
not be transplanted with any assurance of success, and this has been
kept alive, either through ignorance or by those whose interest led
them to encourage the planting of the rapid-growing and easily
propagated kinds, instead of those which, though less profitable to
the producer, would be of far greater value to the purchaser. It
must be admitted, however, that the hickories are not so tenacious
of life as the willows, poplars, elms and similar kinds of trees,
requiring more care in their cultivation if they are to be
transplanted when of a proper size for setting along roadsides or
elsewhere, for shade and ornament, but they are certainly no more
difficult to make live than the beech, oak, tulip and various
species of the magnolia.
The slow growth of the hickories while young is another objection
often urged as a fault of these trees, but there is nothing lost but
time in waiting, and this passes just as swiftly whether we plant
trees that may in ten years yield a golden harvest, or nothing but
leaves; besides, the hickories respond as readily to stimulants and
good care generally as the common fruit trees of our orchards. While
the farmers of our Northern States are generally quite indifferent
as to what becomes of their old hickory trees, and seldom attempt to
preserve the wild seedlings that spring up in the fields and on the
borders of forests, their fellow countrymen of the Southern States
have, within the past two or three decades, discovered that they
possess an inexhaustible source of wealth in their common pecan nut.
Formerly these trees were sacrificed whenever a choice piece of
tough timber was wanted, and often merely to secure the entire crop
of nuts without waiting for nature to drop them within reach; but
the advent of many lines of railroads, steamboats, and other means
of communication with the great cities and their markets, has
changed this inclination to destroy into one of preservation. The
old pecan trees are not only appreciated as a source of income, but
thousands and tens of thousands of seedlings are now annually raised
and planted, to insure larger returns in the near or distant future.
In fact, pecan culture has already become an important industry in
several of the Southern States, although in point of age it is
little more than a fledgling. We have no statistics to show what the
annual crop averages in pounds or bushels, but it must be something
enormous if we make our estimate from the quantities received and
distributed in the Northern States. But with all the efforts put
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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