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
The only objection I have heard of as being urged against planting
fruit and nut trees along the highway is that they tempt boys and
girls--as well as persons of larger growth--to become trespassers;
but this only applies to where there is such a scarcity that the
quantity taken perceptibly lessens the total crop. But where there
is an abundance, either the temptation to trespass disappears, or we
fail to recognize our loss. As we cannot very well dispense with the
small boy and his sister, I am in favor of providing them
bountifully with all the good things that climate and circumstance
will afford. It is a truism that conscience is never strengthened by
an empty stomach.
A mile, in this country, is 5280 feet, and if trees are set 40 feet
apart--which is allowing sufficient room for them to grow during an
ordinary lifetime--we get 133 per mile in a single row; but where
the roads are three to four rods wide, two rows may be planted, one
on each side, or 266 per mile. With such kinds as the Persian walnut
and American and foreign chestnuts, we can safely estimate the crop,
when the trees are twenty years old, at a half bushel per tree, or
66 bushels for a single row, and 133 for a double row per mile. With
grafted trees of either kind we may count on double the quantity
named, presuming, of course, that the trees are given proper care.
But to be on the safe side, let us keep our estimate down to the
half-bushel mark per tree, and with this crop, at the moderate price
of four dollars per bushel, we would get $264 from the crop on a
single row, and double this sum, or $528, for the crop on a double
row--with a fair assurance that the yield would increase steadily
for the next hundred years or more; while the cost of gathering and
marketing the nuts is no greater, and in many instances much less
than that of the ordinary grain crops. At the expiration of the
first half century, one-half of the trees may be removed, if they
begin to crowd, and the timber used for whatever purpose it may best
be adapted. The remaining trees would probably improve, on account
of having more room for development.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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