English walnuts for dessert, walnut confectionery, walnut cake, walnuts
in candy bags at Christmas time--thus far has the average person been
introduced to this, one of the greatest foods of the earth. But if the
food specialists are heard, if the increasing consumption of nuts as
recorded by the Government Bureau of Imports is consulted--in short, if
one opens his eyes to the tremendous place the walnut is beginning to
take among food products the world over, he will realize that the
walnut's rank as a table luxury is giving way to that of a necessity; he
will acknowledge that the time is rapidly approaching when nuts will be
regarded as we now regard beefsteak or wheat products. The demand is
already so great that purveyors are beginning to ask, where are the
walnuts of the future to come from?
In 1902. according to the Department of Commerce and Labor, we imported
from Europe 11,927,432 pounds of English walnuts; each year since then
these figures have increased, until in 1906 they reached 24,917,023
pounds, valued at $2,193,653. In 1907 we imported 32,590,000 pounds of
walnuts and 12,000,000 more were produced in the United States. In
Oregon alone there are consumed $400,000 worth of nuts annually.
When we consider the limited area suitable to walnut culture in
America--California and Oregon practically being the only territory of
commercial importance--and the fact that the Old World is no longer
planting additional groves to any appreciable extent, there being no
more lands available, we begin to realize the important place Oregon is
destined to take in the future of the walnut industry: for in Oregon,
throughout a strip of the richest land known to man--the great
Willamette basin with its tributary valleys and hills, an area of 60 by
150 miles--walnuts thrive and yield abundantly, and at a younger age
than in any other locality, not excepting their original home, Persia.
In addition, Oregon walnuts are larger, finer flavored, and more uniform
in size than those grown elsewhere; they are also free from oiliness and
have a full meat that fills the shell well. These advantages are
recognized in the most indisputable manner, dealers paying from two to
three cents a pound more for Oregon walnuts than for those from other
groves. Thus the very last and highest test--what will they bring in the
market?--has placed the Oregon walnut at the top.
However, in all of Oregon, throughout the vast domain that seems to have
been providentially created to furnish the world with its choicest nut
fruit, there are, perhaps, not more than 200 acres in bearing at the
present time. The test has been accomplished by individual trees found
here and there all the way from Washington and Multnomah counties on the
north, to Josephine and Jackson counties, bordering California. In a
number of counties but two or three handsome old monarchs that have
yielded heavy crops year after year, without a failure for the past
twenty to forty years, bear witness to the soil's suitability; in other
counties, notably Yamhill, sturdy yielding groves attest the soil's
fitness. In none of the counties of the walnut belt has but the smallest
fraction of available walnut lands been appropriated for this great
industry. People are just beginning to realize Oregon's value as a
walnut center and her destiny as the source of supply for the choicest
markets of the future.
Were it practical to plant every unoccupied suitable acre in Oregon this
year to walnuts, in eight or ten years the crop would establish Oregon
forever as the sovereign walnut center of the world; and the crop,
doubling each year thereafter for five years, as is its nature, and
then maintaining a steady increase up to the twentieth year, would
become a power in the world's markets, equal if not superior to that of
North American wheat at the present time.
[Illustration: _More Nuts than Leaves. Tree of D. H. Turner._]
[Illustration: _Garden Stuff, Melons Pumpkins, Prunes and Children
growing among the Walnuts. The Walnuts will in a Few Years put out all
but the Children_]
The United States Year Book for 1908 estimates the food value of the
walnut at nearly double that of wheat, and three times that of
beefsteak.
Colonel Henry Dosch, the Oregon pioneer of walnut growing, says: "As a
business proposition I know of no better in agricultural or
horticultural pursuits."
Prof. C. I. Lewis, of the Oregon Experiment Station, writes: "In
establishing walnut groves we are laying the foundation for prosperity
for a great many generations."
Mr. H. M. Williamson, secretary of the Oregon Board of Horticulture,
writes: "The man who plants a walnut grove in the right place and gives
it proper care is making provision not only for his own future welfare,
but for that of his children and his children's children."
Felix Gillett, the veteran horticulturist of Nevada City, California,
wrote shortly before his death: "Oregon is singularly adapted to raising
walnuts."
Thomas Prince, owner of the largest bearing walnut grove in Oregon,
expresses the most enthusiastic satisfaction with the income from his
investment, and is planting additional groves on his 800-acre farm in
Yamhill county, in many cases uprooting fruit trees to do so.