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
In other localities some pioneer or leader in roadside ornamentation
selected or recommended some species of maple, linden, catalpa,
poplar or willow, but it made little or no difference as to kind,
because, as a rule, all his neighbors followed without a thought or
question in regard to adaptation to soil, climate, or fitness in the
local or surrounding scenery, or of its future economic value. The
result of this want of taste and forethought may be seen in whatever
direction one travels throughout the older and more thickly settled
portions of this country.
Had the early settlers of the New England States planted shellbark
hickories, or even the native chestnut, in place of the American
elm, they would not only have had equally as beautiful trees for
shade and ornament, but the nutritious nuts would scarcely have
failed to bring bright cheer to many a household and money to fill
oft-depleted purses, while their descendants would have blessed them
for their forethought. Of course there are other valuable kinds of
nuts which thrive over the greater part of the New England States,
but I refer only to the two, which were so abundant in the forests
that one or both could have been obtained for the mere cost of
transplanting. But it is not fair to prate about the remissness and
follies of our ancestors, unless we can show by our works that
wisdom has come down to us through their experience.
What is true of the New England is equally true of all the older
States, and is rapidly becoming so in many of the newer, little
attention being paid to the intrinsic value of the wood or the
product of the trees planted along the highways. There are also
millions of acres of wild lands not suitable for cultivation, but
well adapted to the growth of trees, whether of the nut-bearing or
other kinds. But for the present I will omit further reference to
the planting of nut trees except on the line of the highways, just
where other kinds have long been in vogue and are still being
cultivated for shade and ornament,--with no thought, perhaps, on the
part of the planter, that both could be obtained in the nut trees,
with something of more intrinsic value added. The nut trees which
grow to a large size are as well adapted for planting along
roadsides, in the open country, as other kinds that yield nothing in
the way of food for either man or beast. They are also fully as
beautiful in form and foliage, and in many instances far superior,
to the kinds often selected for such purposes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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