My own field of work has recently changed to nutrition, infant feeding,
and I shall undoubtedly come to have more of an understanding of plant
nutrition as well as of babies as I study longer on this subject.
Our recollections of the "good old days" are often mistaken, but I think
there is no doubt that the nut trees bore more and better nuts when I
was a boy than we can find now. Can it be a matter of nutritional
failure?
The first consideration in plant nutrition seems to be the water supply,
and perhaps in many localities the water table has fallen sufficiently
to threaten our trees with malnutrition.
The supply of the common mineral elements may or may not be adequate.
These elements should not be difficult to supply. The matter of the
trace elements and their significance catches our fancy at present and
many of us will undoubtedly begin to explore the effect of this or that
panacea for restoring a favorite old tree to a second youth.