Johns and Cajori, have demonstrated that the proteins of nuts are at
least equal to those of meat. This has been shown to be true of the
almond, English walnut, black walnut, butternut, peanut, pecan, filbert,
Brazil nut, pine nut, chestnut, hickory and cocoanut; that is, of
practically all the nuts in common use.
Observations seem to show that, in general, the proteins of oily seeds
are complete proteins.
Cajori's research has also shown the presence of growth-promoting
vitamins in abundant quantity in the almond, English walnut, filbert,
pine nut, hickory, chestnut and pecan.
That the nut is appreciated as a dainty is attested by the frequency
with which it appears as a dessert and the extensive use of various nuts
as confections. That nuts do not hold a more prominent place in the
national bill of fare as food staples is due chiefly to two causes;
first, the popular idea that nuts are highly indigestible, and second,
the limited supply.
The notion that nuts are difficult of digestion has really no foundation
in fact. The idea is probably the natural outgrowth of the custom of
eating nuts at the close of a meal when an abundance, more likely a
super-abundance, of highly nutritious foods has already been eaten and
the equally injurious custom of eating nuts between meals.
Neglect of thorough mastication must also be mentioned as a common cause
of indigestion following the use of nuts. Nuts are generally eaten dry
and have a firm hard flesh which requires thorough use of the organs of
mastication to prepare them for the action of the several digestive
juices. It has been experimentally shown that nuts are not well digested
unless reduced to a smooth paste in the mouth. Particles of nuts the
size of small seeds may escape digestion. Nut paste or "butter" is
easily digestible.
Delicious nut butters may be prepared from true nuts such as the almond,
filbert and pine-nut, by blanching and crushing, without roasting.
Peanuts require steam roasting. Over-roasting renders the nut difficult
of digestion.
More than 50,000 tons of nut butters are produced in England every year.
Peanut oil, palm kernel oil and coconut oil are the principal raw
materials used. In face of vanishing meat supplies, it is most
comforting to know that meats of all sorts may be safely replaced by
nuts not only without loss, but with a decided gain. Nuts have several
advantages over flesh foods which are well worth considering.
1. Nuts are free from waste products, uric acid, urea, and other tissue
wastes which abound in meats.
2. Nuts are aseptic, free from putrefactive bacteria, and do not readily
undergo decay either in the body or outside of it. Meats, on the other
hand as found in the markets, are practically always in an advanced
stage of putrefaction. Ordinary fresh, dried or salted meats contain
from three million to ten times that number of bacteria per ounce, and
such meats as Hamburger steak often contain more than a billion
putrefactive organisms to the ounce. Nuts are clean and sterile.
3. Nuts are free from trichinae, tapeworm, and other parasites, as well
as other infections due to specific organisms. Nuts are in good health
when gathered and usually remain so until eaten.
In view of these facts, it is most interesting to know that in nuts, the
most neglected of all well known food products, we find the assurance of
an ample and complete food supply for all future time, even though
necessity should compel the total abandonment of our present forms of
animal industry.
Another of the great advantages of the nut is that with few exceptions,
it may be eaten direct from the hand of nature without culinary
preparation of any sort. Indeed, the common custom of offering nuts as
dessert is an acknowledgment that in the nut the refined chemistry of
Nature's laboratory permits of no improvement by the clumsy methods of
the kitchen.
Every highway should be lined with trees. Many nut trees will grow on
land unsuited to ordinary farm crops. The pinon flourishes on the bleak
and barren peaks of the Rockies.
A few nut trees planted for each inhabitant would insure the country
against any possibility of food shortage. A row of nut trees on each
side of our 3,000,000 miles of country roads would provide half enough
fat and protein for a population of 100,000,000.
If each one of the 6,000,000 farmers in the United States would plant
and maintain an orchard of ten acres of black walnuts, the annual crop,
with little or no attention, would yield not less than 3,000,000 tons of
nut protein, the equivalent of more than 12,000,000 tons of meat,
besides more than 6,000,000 tons of fat of the finest quality,
sufficient to supply every one of 100,000,000 people with an ample
amount of protein, and, in addition, the fat equivalent of 6-2/3 ounces
of butter.
Nuts should be eaten every day and should be made a substantial part of
the bill of fare. So long as the nut is regarded as a dainty, suitable
only for dessert, the demand will be limited. But as its merits come to
be appreciated, it will be in greater demand and the supply will rapidly
grow in volume.
_The Lime Content of Nuts_
In proportion to their weight, nuts contain more lime than any other
class of foodstuffs except legumes, the average being more than
one-third grain to the ounce (.370 grs.). Certain nuts are surprisingly
rich in lime. For example, the almond affords one and one-third grains
of food lime to the ounce, while the hazel-nut or filbert affords one
and three-quarters grains of lime to the ounce, or 11.3 per cent of a
day's ration of lime. The pecan and the walnut are also fairly rich in
lime, as is also the peanut.
An ounce and a half of each of almonds and hazel-nuts or filberts will
supply one-third the total lime requirement for a day. In general, this
addition to the ordinary bill of fare would be quite sufficient to
insure against any serious deficiency of lime.
Meats of all sorts are poor in lime. The lime in animals is almost
exclusively in the bones. One ounce of almonds, for instance, contains
as much food lime as a pound of the choicest steak, and a quarter of a
pound of black walnuts supplies as much food lime as nearly two pounds
of average meats.
_The Iron Content of Nuts_
The almond, hazel-nut, chestnut, peanut, pecan and walnut, all contain a
rich store of iron, the average iron content expressed as per cent. of
the iron ration being 4.79, more than two and one-half times that of
fruits (1.74), three times that of vegetables (1.46), greater than that
of cereals and even superior to average meats. It is true that the
extraordinarily high food value of nuts renders them less available than
fruits as prime sources of iron, for one would have to eat 5,000
calories of chestnuts or walnuts or more than 4,000 calories of pecans
or peanuts to get a day's ration of iron; but three-quarters of a pound
of almonds or hazel-nuts would supply the needed quantum of iron with an
energy intake of 2,500 calories, on account of their unusually rich
store of iron.
It is worth while to know that vegetable milk prepared from almonds, by
adding five parts of water to one part of blanched almonds made into a
smooth paste, supplies two and a half times as much iron as does cow's
milk in equal quantity, and furnishing the same amount of protein. It is
worth noting, just here, also, that the protein of the almond is, like
that of milk, a complete protein, that is, a protein out of which human
tissues may be readily formed, which is by no means true of all
vegetable proteins. Such a milk, however, would be somewhat deficient in
lime, a lack which could be supplied by lentil soup.
A product commercially known as Malted Nuts, prepared from almonds or
peanuts, has been found of very great service in meeting the needs of
infants and some classes of invalids for an easily digestible liquid
nourishment to take the place of milk when a substitute is needed.
The chief obstacle which at the present time stands in the way of making
nuts a food staple is the meager supply. If the population of the United
States should suddenly turn to nuts as the chief means of meeting their
protein requirement, the total annual crop of nuts would be consumed in
a day or two, or possibly less time. The American people readily change
their eating habits. As nuts become more plentiful through the efforts
of the Nut Growers Association, and the general enlightenment of the
people concerning the superiority of this class of foodstuffs by a well
conducted propaganda such as has been carried on in behalf of the raisin
industry and such as the meat packers are now conducting in their effort
to induce the American people to eat more meat, but of course on an
honest, scientific basis rather than by means of untruthful and
misleading statements, as the packers are doing, the intelligent people
of this country could soon be brought to an appreciation of the great
value of edible nuts and the important place which they should fill in
the bill of fare.
Thirty years ago, the writer prepared a paste from peanuts which had
been previously cooked by steaming or baking, and gave to the
preparation the name of "Nut Butter." Little attention was paid to the
product for two or three years, then it began rapidly to win favor and,
according to a recent report by the Census Bureau, 56 establishments, in
1919, produced peanut butter to the value of nearly $6,000,000, and the
peanut crop last year was 816,464,000 pounds. In 30 years, the peanut
crop has increased from a few thousand acres to nearly 2,000,000 acres,
and the peanut has come to occupy a place on the national bill of fare
of considerable prominence. The peanut is not really a nut but a legume
and is in flavor and other edible qualities greatly inferior to the
products in which this Association is interested. Nevertheless, the fact
that it is accessible has given it an opportunity to quickly gain
popular favor. The writer feels very confident that if this association
and other similar organizations will continue their efforts in behalf of
nut growing, and will at the same time adopt measures to inform the
public concerning the remarkable nutritive properties of these products
which have been created expressly for the use of man and which are so
wonderfully adapted to his sustenance, there will be a steady advance in
their acceptance by the public and in the not far distant future, the
raising of nuts will come to be as nearly universal among farmers as the
production of apples or other fruit crops. If the uncultivated lands of
this country not now occupied as farms were occupied by nut trees in
good bearing, the annual crop of nut protein and fat would be amply
sufficient, in connection with the corn, wheat and other crops harvested
by our 6,000,000 farmers from our big billion acre farm to easily
support a population of 1,000,000 persons. If the nut is given a chance,
it will not only save the human race from perishing from starvation, but
will give it a good boost upward in the direction of race betterment.
The Eat More Meat campaign which the packers are now conducting and for
the support of which they at their recent convention in Kansas City,
voted to raise a fund of $500,000, is being carried on by the grossest
chicanery and misrepresentation. Pseudo-scientific men are being put
before the public as great authorities in human nutrition and these men
are sending out plausible but most misleading eulogies of meat as a
foodstuff possessing essential qualities for the lack of which the
American people are suffering. The only possible reason for these
frantic appeals to the American people to consume more meat is the
depletion of the packers' profits by the steady decrease in meat
consumption which has been going on for a number of years and which
begins to threaten the future development of their industry. The public
will be damaged rather than benefited by an increase of meat
consumption. A nation-wide campaign in behalf of the almond, the
hazel-nut, the walnut, the pecan and other of our native nuts would
unquestionably improve the health and vigor of the American people,
provided the nut growers will supply the demand which would be created.
* * * * *
August 12th, 1922.
Dear Dr. Deming:
I have received your letters. I am sorry to answer you very late,
because on March 28th my wife died. I have been again heart broken and
delay everything for these few months.
I have not yet met Mr. Read, I went to the U. S. Consulate to find him,
but no definite answer received yet.
The place Chuking is rather inconvenient to reach from Shanghai. I am
gong to buy land near Shanghai i. e. one hour trip from business center.
When I succeed that, I will remove all trees out.
I am sending you separate paper that you want for the convention.
The seeds that I sent you last year is Castanopsis sp. grows near
Hangchow, 100 feet high and ever green.
Yours very sincerely
P. W. WANG.
CHINESE NUTS--WALNUT
P. W. WANG
_Kinsan Arboretum, Chuking, Kiangsu Province, China._
Historic research by Berthold Laufer in his "Sino Iranica" published by
Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago is very valuable. His
conclusion is that China is not the original home of walnuts but
imported from Persia via two routes, the earlier by Chinese Turkestan
and little later by Tibet. I recommend every member to read this book.
It contains many valuable historical informations about trees and
vegetables in Asia.
According to the recent travel of late Mr. F. N. Meyer no grafting or
budding of nut trees yet practiced in China. The walnuts varied from
thinnest shell like peanut or hard shell with poor flavor. The Chinese
walnut are proved to be hardier than Persian walnut in America.
There is no walnut in this province except a few in ornamental gardens.
What we can get is through grocery stores. They imported them from
Tientsin or Tsintao. The former is easy to crack with fine flavor and
the kernel color is light. The latter is hard to crack, the internal
partition has a peculiar construction that the kernel is very hard to
take out even in broken pieces and the kernel has a brown color with the
taste of bitterness and astringency. That shows that the walnut in Chili
is far superior to that of Shantung. I do not believe that the above
difference is due to the latitude, because there is one walnut tree in a
garden in Soochow, a big city 50 miles from Shanghai, the nut is very
good.
The Chinese way of eating walnut is just like Americans. One thing that
coincides with Dr. Kellogg's treatment to a Senator's daughter. In China
there is no baby fed by cow's milk. When the mother lacks milk and the
home is not rich enough to hire a milk nurse, walnut milk is
substituted. The way of making walnut milk is rather crude here, they
simply grind or knock the kernel into paste then mix with boil water. I
wish to learn Dr. Kellogg's way of making walnut milk.
One tradition that believed by most Chinese even well educated Chinese
for thousands years that if you eat walnut constantly, your life will be
prolonged, and if you only eat fruits and nuts excluding all provisions
other than produced from trees even rice and wheat your life will be
eternal. I must recall the theory of Dr. Kellogg that may be the proof
of the above tradition. "Beef fats is deposited in the tissue as beef
fats without undergoing any chemical change whatever; mutton fat is
deposited as mutton fat; lard as pig fat etc." Perhaps the influence of
animal fat reduces the life as animals are generally short lived and nut
fats increases the life as nut trees live for centuries.
Chinese walnuts are sometimes met with very good ones, moreover they are
hardy and free from insect or fungus attack. They are really worth while
to propagate. As I can not get propagate nor scions I am now planting
seedling from best nuts. I wish you are doing the same work and finally
we can supply the colder world with suitable walnut trees.
I suggest one plan that I know very big amount of walnuts of best
quality are exported from Tientsin to the States. You can secure the
best ones by selecting from the walnut importers for planting.
There is another walnut produced in the vicinity of Hangchow Carya
Catheyensis, really a hickory, last year I sent to Mr. Jones for 50 lbs.
The taste is far below that of Pecan, but just 3 months ago I ate at a
friend's house. The hickory kernel was roasted with sugar syrup. It lost
all bitterness and has a very good hickory taste with fine hickory
flavor.
Pterocarya stenoptera grows best among any other trees in this region.
It resists drought very well. I like to try to use it as stock for
grafting.
I do not interest in chestnut yet. As far as I know the best chestnut is
produced in Lian-Shang near Tientsin.
Castanopsis from Hangchow is very nice. They said the tree is over 100
feet high and is ever green.
Hazelnut is from Chili and North. They are not so good as yours.
Chinese almond is apricot kernel, the best one is from Peking or
Tientsin.
Ginkgo nuts are never eaten afresh, we eat them sometimes roasted and
most times cooked with meats. In which you will find both meats and nuts
of good taste.
I like Torreya Grandis very much, I think Americans do not like it
because they do not use the right way. Chinese roast the Torreya nut
until all moisture gone then wait they are cold and eat them. They must
be kept dry after roasted otherwise the taste is not so good and a
second roast is necessary.
I hope you will try the above two kinds nuts by the above way, as Ginkgo
can live over thousand years and Torreya in this country is also long
lived, their nut fat would keep the human tissue less easy to decay.
The pine seeds kernels are sold here for Mex. $1.60 per pound. If your
pine seeds kernel are cheap, it is possible to come over. The pine seeds
are Pinus Bungeana and P. Massoniana.
RESOLUTIONS ON THE DEATH OF
DR. WALTER VAN FLEET
At the thirteenth annual convention of the Northern Nut Growers'
Association, held at Rochester, N. Y., September 7, 8 and 9, 1922, a
committee was appointed to express the sorrow of the association at the
death of its honorary member, Dr. Walter Van Fleet, at the age of
sixty-four, on January 26th 1922, and to inform Mrs. Van Fleet of its
action.
Dr. Van Fleet, at one time the only honorary member of the association,
was made so in recognition of his services to nut growing in breeding
blight resistant chestnuts and chinkapins, and of his unfailing courtesy
to the association whenever asked to present the results of his
investigations.
Although incomplete his experiments had already produced results of
great promise and shown the way that his successors must follow. Many of
us knew him personally and had visited his home and experimental grounds
at Bell, Maryland, some of us more than once. Few of us knew his varied
and high attainments in many other fields than plant breeding, though a
moment's thought would have made a discerning person see that his
modesty, self-effacement, kindliness and sympathy were things that most
often come to those whose experiences of life have been the widest. His
accomplishments in plant breeding and other fields, a bibliography of
his writings, and the events of his life, were fully and sympathetically
related in a communication written by Mr. Mulford of the U. S. Dept. of
Agriculture at the request of the association and read at the meeting.
The association feels that no one can ever quite take the place of Dr.
Van Fleet in the field of his life work, in experimental nut breeding
and in the hearts of the members of this association who had the
privilege of knowing him, and it wishes to put on record its great
sorrow at his untimely death in the very midst of his beneficent
activity for the benefit of mankind.
RESOLUTION ON THE DEATH OF
COLEMAN K. SOBER
At the thirteenth annual convention of the Northern Nut Growers'
Association, held at Rochester, N. Y., September 7, 8 and 9, 1922, a
committee was appointed to express the feeling of the association at the
death of one of its life members, Coleman K. Sober, at the age of
seventy-nine, at his home in Lewisburg, Pa., in December 1921, and to
inform his family of its action.
Colonel Sober, as he was most often called, was a frequent attendant at
the meetings of the association in its early history. He was a pioneer
in the culture of the chestnut in America and the grower and distributor
of a variety which he called the Sober Paragon. He developed the
production of this valuable variety, and its nursery stock, on a large
scale and had demonstrated chestnut growing as the first of the
established nut industries in the northeastern United States. He devised
methods of grafting and cultivating the chestnut and invented means and
machinery for harvesting and shelling the nuts, for which he found a
ready market at good prices.
A man of strong personality, capable of large operations and
unaccustomed to failure he found it hard to admit defeat of his deeply
cherished purpose, and success already within his grasp, by that great
national calamity the invasion of this country by the fatal chestnut
blight. Undoubtedly he foresaw, as did other advocates of nut culture,
the great help and stimulus to the industry that would result from the
commercial success of chestnut culture, and it was a bitter
disappointment to him to find himself helpless before the irresistable
progress of the blight. This failure came too late in life for him to
recover and develop new fields in nut culture which, let us believe, he
would have done if he had been younger, for we know that he was an
advocate of the roadside planting of nut trees and a supporter of the
efforts of those of us who are striving for the success of all forms of
nut culture.
Nut growing and this association have lost an able and energetic worker.
An account of Col. Sober's life and works may be found in the August
1922 number of the American Nut Journal.
Telegram from Washington, D. C.
TO JAMES S. MCGLENNON:
Deeply regret my inability attend thirteenth annual meeting. Am sure it
will be great success and all will enjoy trip to your beautiful city and
surrounding country. The next few years will show fine results of
efforts our Association, and nut culture in north will take on new life
and result in planting thousands of acres trees. I hope Washington will
be selected as place for next annual meeting.
T. P. LITTLEPAGE
* * * * *
Lincoln, Nebraska, September 5, 1922
My Dear McGlennon:
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be in your city this
week. I have been through your city five times in three years. If I had
known what you have there I should have stopped there three years ago.
Since it is impossible for me to be there at this time I will save my
coin to purchase trees and nuts for next year.
Dr. Deming's wonderful discovery of a monster pecan tree in Hartford,
Conn., together with native pecans north of Burlington, Iowa also two
Iowa pecan trees growing in this city for twenty-eight years, makes the
field for pecan trees a very large one viz. from the Gulf to the
forty-first parallel. Tell Dr. Deming we trust his wonderful discovery
does not prove to be a pignut.
Our opportunities in the north for growing nut trees I think are
wonderful.
The association with you will be a great success.
Sincerely,
W. A. THOMAS.
* * * * *
August 23, 1922.
MR. JAMES S. MCGLENNON,
Rochester, N. Y.
Dear Sir:--
I wish to thank you for your very kind letter of the eighteenth, and beg
to assure you that it would afford me great pleasure to attend and meet
you and others who are doing constructive work in the cause of nut
culture. Unfortunately it will not be possible for me to do so. I have
been on the sick list for the past few weeks which with my eighty-five
years has left me so weak that I could not endure the fatigue connected
with such an undertaking.
I would much like to see the results of your work with filberts, as I
believe that is one branch of nut growing that can be made a success.
Some years ago I planted out some filberts and they grew very well and
tried to bear nuts. But unfortunately they had been planted near some
woods that contained some squirrels who invariably ate all the nuts
before the time they were half grown, so I grubbed them out. Recently I
planted some more farther removed from woods and hope to see them fruit
soon.