the time is certainly not far distant when it will be necessary to
utilize in the most economical manner possible every acre of soil
capable of producing food. During the war the attention of
agriculturists was very forcibly called to the enormous waste involved
in our so-called animal industry. The first measure of food economy
adopted in Germany at the beginning of the war was the slaughter of a
large part of livestock. The same measure was adopted in Scandinavian
countries and in all parts of central Europe. This was absolutely
necessary, as Lusk and numerous other authorities have shown, for the
reason that to produce one pound of water-free food in the form of beef
or mutton requires the consumption more than 30 pounds of digestible
food material. The cow is a much more economical means of food
transformation, requiring the consumption of only a little more than 5
pounds of food for each pound produced, so that the waste of food in the
production of milk is less than one-fifth as much as in the production
of meat. This has led the food economists to recommend the reduced use
of meat and the increased use of milk as a source of the complete
protein required for sound nutrition. McCollum and other authorities,
including representatives of the United States Department of
Agriculture, have within the last four years persistently urged upon the
public the importance of using more milk and less meat, and not simply
as a matter of economy but as a matter of health as well, for it has
been shown that the protein of milk is even superior to that of meat. It
was found, indeed, that by the use of a few ounces of milk daily, a pint
and a half, in connection with a dietary otherwise consisting wholly of
foods derived from the vegetable kingdom, the body will be amply
supplied with complete proteins, the milk not only furnishing protein of
a superior character but serving also to supplement the proteins of the
cereals, roots and other vegetable foods, supplying the amino-acids
which they lack so as to render them also available for tissue growth
and reconstruction.
This discovery respecting the important place which milk is capable of
filling in the solution of the great and pressing problem of human
nutrition is a highly important one, and its value has led to very
active efforts on the part of the U. S. Department of Agriculture to
enlarge the dairy interests and increase the milk production of the
country as one of the best means of food economy which could be adopted.
But even this is not a complete solution of the difficulty, for the
keeping of milch cattle involves still a very large waste of food
material, five pounds being consumed by the cow for each pound produced.
The evident reason for this is the fact that the cow requires the large
part of the foods she eats for her own use in maintaining heat
production, supplying energy for exercise, supporting the work of the
heart, lungs, digestive organs, etc. The food value of the milk produced
represents simply what is left over after the cow has made use of what
she needs for herself.
There can be no doubt that as meat production diminishes, as it is
certain to do, milk production will likewise decrease. There is even at
the present time a notable shortage of dairy products, and the average
per capita production will undoubtedly continue to decrease for the same
causes which inevitably lead to a lessened meat production. Some other
source for the complete proteins needed to supplement the incomplete
proteins of cereals and roots must be provided. Fortunately, Nature has
supplied us with this all-essential foodstuff in that choicest of all
our products, the nut. This is a vitally important fact which sometime
will save the race from protein starvation.
A study of the relative protein content of nuts, milk, and meat shows
that, pound for pound, the almond, beech nut and walnut contain on an
average as much protein as does meat and five times as much as is found
in milk, and protein which from rat feeding experiments appears to be of
equal value. The chestnut, the chinquapin, the filbert, the hickory,
pecan and pine nut contain on an average as much protein as is found in
fish, while the butternut, the peanut and the pignolia contain twice as
much or 50 per cent more than is found in the best of meat.
The following table shows the number of pints of milk equaled by one
pound each of the several nuts mentioned, together with the calory value
of the nuts per pound and of the amount of milk containing an equivalent
amount of protein and the amount of each kind of nuts needed to supply
supplementary proteins for one day:
Pints of Milk
containing as Calories Calories Amt. needed
much protein Milk Nuts for one day
as one pound
Acorn 2.4 780 2620 8.3
Almond 6.1 2080 3030 3.2
Beech nut 6.6 2145 3075 3.0
Butternut 8.5 2762 3165 2.4
Chestnut 3.2 1040 1876 6.4
Chinquapin 3.8 1072 1800 6.4
Filbert or Hazelnut 5.0 1625 3290 4.0
Hickory nut 4.6 1495 3345 4.8
Pecan 3.6 1170 3455 5.6
Peanut 9.2 2090 2600 2.2
Pinon 4.4 1430 3205 4.8
English walnut 5.4 1555 3300 3.7
Black walnut 8.5 2762 3105 2.4
From animal feeding experiments it has been determined that about 20 oz.
of milk will furnish sufficient complete protein to supplement a
vegetable diet otherwise deficient in complete proteins. This amount of
milk will supply one-third to one-half the total daily protein
requirement for the average person. Nuts are so rich in these precious
proteins, practically identical with those of milk, that the protein
found in 20 ounces of milk may be furnished by 2 ounces of peanuts,
2-1/2 ounces of butternuts, 3 ounces of almonds or beechnuts, 4 ounces
of English walnuts, or filberts, 5 ounces of pinenuts (pinons) or
hickory nuts, 5-1/2 ounces of pecans, 6-1/2 ounces of chestnuts or
chinquapins, or half a pound of acorns.
The nut is one of the most important and interesting of all foodstuffs
for the reason that it presents in concentrated form the most valuable
and easily digestible of proteins. It is for this reason that the
farmers of Northern Italy are able to thrive on a diet of which the
chestnut is the staple. For the same reason 300,000 Pacific Coast
Indians prospered for centuries on a diet consisting chiefly of acorns
and pinenuts. In recent times, one of these Indians was known to be
living at the age of nearly 140 years, and the farmers of the West and
South before they had destroyed with axe and fire the splendid oak
forests of pioneer days, depended chiefly on mast to fatten their hogs.
The acorn was their chief source of protein, which is as necessary for a
hog as for a college professor.
From the standpoint of cost, nuts, even at the present extraordinary
prices, compare favorably with milk as a source of protein, because of
the small quantity required to furnish the needed supplement of complete
proteins. For example, shelled almonds, at a cost of $1.00 a pound
(retail) supply for 19.2 cents the same amount of supplementary protein
furnished by milk at a cost of 24 cents. Black walnuts supply the same
amount for 15 cents, pine nuts (pinons) for 20 cents, hickory nuts 15
cents, and peanuts 4 cents.
The late Dr. Austin Flint more than fifty years ago prepared from
almonds a milk for use by certain classes of patients. The writer, about
thirty years ago, prepared from the peanut and other nuts a preparation
known as malted nuts which much resembles malted milk in appearance and
flavor, and which has been successfully used in place of milk by persons
sensitized to cow's milk in hundreds of cases.
The preparation of milk substitutes from vegetable sources is not a new
idea. When in Russia a few years ago, I found on sale in delicatessen
shops a paste prepared from honey and almonds which with the addition of
water made a very palatable emulsion much resembling milk in appearance
as well as in flavor. I have been informed that the natives of the
Philippines prepare from the litchi nut a vegetable milk for feeding
infants deprived of their natural nourishment. These natural products
have the advantage over the infant foods of commerce most of which are
better fitted to destroy than to preserve life. They are complete foods,
supplying the essential vitamines as well as other necessary elements.
The nut is not only the most concentrated form of nourishment known,
but, contrary to the general view, is one of the most easily digestible.
The supposed indigestibility of the nut is due to two things, eating
when already satiated with food; that is, taking the nut as a surplus
food, and second, neglecting to masticate the nuts thoroughly. Watch a
monkey eating nuts and see how thoroughly he masticates each particle.
Any particle not well crushed and emulsified is passed through the
intestinal canal undigested and of course unabsorbed. But when crushed
and converted into a smooth cream, the nut is one of the most easily
digestible of all foods. Most nuts consist almost exclusively of two
food principles, proteins and fats. The protein is one of the finest
sort and more easily digestible in the raw state than is cooked protein
of any kind. The fat is finely emulsified, and thus prepared for prompt
digestion and absorption.
Experiments on human subjects conducted at the Battle Creek Sanitarius
by an expert from the laboratory of Yale University, showed that the
proteins of nuts are as easily digested and as fully utilized as the
proteins of other foodstuffs.
The peanut produces an average crop of at least 40 bushels, or 900
pounds of shelled nuts to the acre, equivalent to 8,280 pounds of cow's
milk, to produce which would require 4.6 acres. A grove of black
walnuts, 40 trees to the acre, producing one hundred pounds of nuts to
the tree, or one thousand to the acre, would afford as much protein as
8,500 pounds of milk, to produce which would require 5.3 acres. It is to
be noted, also, that one pound of peanuts has a nutritive value nearly
one-third greater than that of the 9.2 pints of milk containing an
equivalent amount of protein, while the calory content of the one pound
of nuts is more than ten per cent greater than that of the milk
furnishing the same amount of protein. In the case of many nuts the
disproportion is greater. For example, one pound of filberts has a food
value double that of an amount of milk containing the same amount of
protein.
The nut is evidently superior to milk as a source of protein. Like milk,
nuts are rich in lime, doubtless due to the high protein content with
which the lime is associated in vegetable products. Nuts, like milk, are
deficient in iron, although in this respect they are considerably
superior to milk. Hence when nuts are freely used as a source of protein
care should be taken to supplement them by a liberal quantity of greens,
which are rich in iron and lime as well as in the fat soluble vitamine
which is also found in abundance in milk but in which nuts are rather
deficient.
It thus appears that nuts, because of the superior quality of their
protein, may not only take the place of meat in the dietary, but when
properly combined with other vegetable foods, may to a large extent, at
least, take the place of milk. In this respect they constitute a unique
class of foodstuffs.
The soy bean, which like the peanut is a legume rather than a true nut,
resembles the peanut in composition and like it affords a protein of a
quality so closely resembling that of milk that a very excellent milk
has been prepared from it. Its protein is also complete in character and
may replace the protein of meat. The soy bean has, in fact, for many
thousands of years been the chief source of complete proteins for the
Chinese and the Japanese.
Aside from the soy bean and the peanut, nuts have no rivals in the
vegetable kingdom. They are real plant aristocrats, the value of which
will be more and more appreciated as scientific research and practical
dietetic experience make clear their numerous points of superiority.
The meat industry and the milk supply are so closely related that both
are influenced by the same causes. Both meat and milk are certain to
become scarcer and more costly. And while it is most desirable that milk
should continue to constitute a part of the human bill of fare and that
its use should be encouraged and if possible increased, it is certain
vegetable substitutes for both meat and milk will be increasingly in
demand as pasture lands shrink in area and the world's population and
consequent demand for food cereals increase.
It is certainly greatly to be desired that such efforts should be put
forward to convince members of congress and of state legislatures of the
importance of nut culture as will induce them to institute efficient
measures for encouraging the wide spread culture of nut trees and thus
make provision in time for the pressing need of the superfine material
afforded by them which coming years will certainly develop, for it
cannot be doubted that as the earth's population increases and as the
science of nutrition is perfected, we shall return more and more to the
dietary of primitive man, in which nuts were the chief staple, with
fruits, succulent roots and tender shoots as supplementary foods for
bulk, vitamines and food salts.
* * * * *
THE SECRETARY-TREASURER: I have been asked to prepare a paper on the
"Propagated Hickories." I have passed around a printed slip giving the
results of tests of some hickory nuts which will be useful in connection
with the paper.
PROPAGATED HICKORIES
WILLARD G. BIXBY, BALDWIN, NASSAU CO., N, Y.
The title of this paper is a little misleading. In the nut contests the
word "propagated" is restricted to those nuts which any nurseryman lists
in his catalog and of which he is prepared to furnish grafted, budded or
otherwise asexually multiplied trees. There are few hickories which are
"propagated" in this sense and perhaps a better title would be "What We
Know About the Hickories That Are Propagated Experimentally."
In a paper which Dr. Morris is to deliver he will tell us about top
working hickory trees. This is a matter of great interest for top
working existing trees is the method which at the present time promises
to be the means of getting our first orchards of fine hickories in
bearing condition.
The earliest instance of which we know anything of grafted hickories is
that of the Elliot hickory owned by the late Whitney Eliot, of North
Haven, Conn. This was awarded a prize offered by the late A. J. Coe of.
Meriden Conn., for the best hickory nut exhibited at the December
meeting of the Connecticut Agricultural Society in 1892. According to
the Bulletin of the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture on "Nut Culture in the U.
S.," 1896, this was the product of a grafted tree. I have never seen a
specimen of the nut although I understand that the tree is still
standing. I have been unable to get any definite information as to when
the grafting was done, methods used, etc.
The next instance of successful hickory grafting and the one which is
best known is the work of the late Henry Hales of Ridgewood, N. J. When
he purchased his place some fifty years ago, he found on it a fine
shagbark hickory tree. This had been standing longer than the oldest
inhabitant could remember and it is supposed to have been one of the
original forest trees of that section and spared on account of the
excellent nuts it bore. It came to the attention of the late Andrew S.
Fuller, author of the "Nut Culturist" published in 1896, and was
described by him in 1870 in the Rural New Yorker. Shortly after this
description, Mr. Hales received many requests for scions to which he
generously responded and any propagator who thought he could propagate
this hickory was given a chance to try, the conditions being that
one-half of the successfully grafted trees should belong to Mr. Hales
in payment for the scions sent. During the next ten years orders for
scions were so numerous that the old tree was kept pretty well pruned.
Mr. Hales received during the period only about two dozen trees from the
thousands of scions which he sent out. According to Fuller's "Nut
Culturist" these were largely grafted by Mr. J. R. Trumpey of Flushing,
N. Y., now a part of New York City. Information which I received at the
Hales place was that the trees growing there were grafted by Jackson
Dawson of the Arnold Arboretum about 1891. Inasmuch as there appear to
be trees of two different ages there it is probable that some trees were
from one propagator and some from the other. The trees grafted by
Jackson Dawson we know were on bitternut root and it seems likely that
the others were also for one tree is not like the others and I was
informed that that was a grafted tree, but the graft died and a shoot
came out at the base of the graft which was thought to be from the graft
but, after the tree had grown it became evident that it was not. The
buds of this tree show evidence of the bitternut. The nuts, however are
not pure bitternut and the tree is seemingly a bitternut x shagbark
hybrid. All of the trees grafted by Jackson Dawson were bench grafted in
the greenhouse on especially grown stocks. I have two trees on my place
from Thomas Meehan & Sons, Germantown, Pa., propagated in the same way
and, when received, the long tap roots were coiled up like springs
showing that the trees had been grown in pots. These trees, however,
have grown well since I planted them out though they were very small and
feeble when set out. These grafted Hales trees at the Hales place bore
nuts in eighteen to twenty years after grafting. They bore for about
five years and then ceased bearing. I went to see them for the reason
that I was informed by Miss Hales that the trees were not looking
satisfactorily and she was afraid there was some disease on them. I
requested the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture to allow Mr. S. M. McMurran,
who has made a study of pecan rosette, to come and look at the trees for
it seemed to me that they were similarly affected. He took specimens of
the leaves and reported that he could find no evidence of insect or
fungus trouble. He also made a careful examination of the soil, and the
farm was gone over carefully looking at the pecan and hickory trees
growing there of which there are a large number. Most of these did not
seem to be in good condition although a few did. Tests made of the soil
seemed to show that it was not the kind of soil in which hickories and
pecans do their best. It was also ascertained that while Mr. Hales
senior was living the trees had received an application of manure every
year. Since his death they have not. This, in connection with the
poorness of the soil for hickories, seems possible may be the reason for
the cessation of bearing. It also seems likely that bitternut root is
not a good stock for the shagbark. I have on my place two grafted
Cedarapids trees, each of which when received was four years from the
graft and four feet in height above the graft. One was on bitternut
stock and one on shagbark. The one on shagbark stock had made about six
inches the first year, a foot the second year, a foot and a half the
third and two feet the fourth while in the case of the one on bitternut
root the growths were reversed, two feet the first, a foot and a half
the second year, a foot the third year and six inches the fourth year.
Mr. Jones has also had the experience of grafting the Vest hickory on
the bitternut, had it bear in two years, and then die. While the
evidence we have on this subject is not conclusive as there may have
been other factors which might have caused the trouble outside of the
stock, it shows that the stock on which the different hickories are to
be grafted is a matter of importance. Mr. Henry Hicks of Westbury, L.
I., who a number of years ago became enthusiastic on the Hales hickory,
has four grafted trees or those which he purchased for grafted on his
place. One he has had twenty-seven years and it has not borne. It has
been twice transplanted. He has two or three others which have not yet
borne. Inasmuch as the buds of these trees are not all alike, it is very
evident that they cannot all nave been grafted from the original Hales
tree. The finest looking Hales hickory of which I know is on the place
of Frederick E. Willets, Glen Cove, L. I. Mr. Willets could not tell me
how many years it had been set out but it was quite a good many. It
bears a few nuts but the tree has been disappointing in its performance.
I examined it during the past summer and the nuts, of which there were
not many on the tree, were dropping off. It was evident that some insect
was attacking the husks which may account for the rather unsatisfactory
bearing record.
In distinction from this rather unsatisfactory record of Hales trees we
have great promise of something worth while in the only other bearing
grafted transplanted hickory of which I can give information, Mr. Rush's
Weiker tree. This was produced by. Mr. J. F. Jones when he was living in
Monticello, Fla. A southern pecan nut was planted in 1902. It was
root-grafted below the surface of the ground in 1903, sent to Mr. Rush
in the spring of 1904 and planted out at that time. Mr. Jones says that
the tree was not over eight inches high when sent. It bore its first
nuts in 1917 and has borne a few every year since. This year the tree
set full and had a good crop when I saw it last. The nuts borne by this
tree are considerably larger than those of the parent Weiker tree.
Inasmuch as the original Weiker tree has given us our best hickory
bearing record, it seems not unlikely that this grafted Weiker tree may
also be an unusually good bearer.
Against this slow record of grafted transplanted hickory trees, we have
some remarkably quick results with top worked hickory trees. Mr. Jones
has a bitternut tree now about five inches in diameter which was top
worked in the Spring of 1916 to Fairbanks variety, ten grafts being put
in, two of which blew out that summer or fall and were replaced the next
spring. In 1919 all the grafts, the two year ones as well as the three
year ones bore nuts, about 120 maturing. The tree set full of nuts in
1920, but caterpillers got on it, unnoted, and practically the entire
crop dropped off. Mr. Jones also has a smaller bitternut tree top worked
at the same time to Siers. It bore two nuts in 1919. He also has a
mockernut tree top worked at the same time with Kirtland and which set
some nuts in 1919 but which dropped off before maturity. It set quite a
number in 1920. Mr. D. C. Snyder, Center Point, Iowa, has a shagbark
hickory some twenty-five or thirty years old which was top worked
shortly after it had begun to bear. In 1913 the four top limbs were top
worked to Fairbanks hickory, the rest of the tree being undisturbed. In
1915 these grafts bore nuts and have borne every year since. In 1919
they bore two quarts. Inasmuch as this was a year when the hickory crop
in that section was a failure it was thought to speak well for the
bearing of the Fairbanks hickory. In 1916 four grafts of Dennis hickory
were put in and three of Cedar Rapids. The Dennis grafts bore four nuts
in 1918 and over a dozen in 1919. The Cedarapids bore one dozen in 1919
besides a number more which a squirrel got before Mr. Snyder did. Mr.
William A. Baker of Wolcott, N. Y., top worked a bitternut tree to
Fairbanks in 1917 and the tree bore ten nuts in 1919. Mr. Harvey Losee,
Upper Red Hook, N. Y., grafted the young shoots of cut back hickories
and out of three shoots so grafted had them bear in three, four and five
years respectively. Dr. Morris has grafted a Taylor hickory on a small
tree which bore five years after grafting. Dr. Deming on his place at
Georgetown, Conn., has probably a greater collection of top worked
hickories of various varieties than anybody else. These trees are
growing finely and give promise of bearing early. A Taylor hickory on
stock 1-1/4" diameter grafted, April 26, 1918 had ten nuts on it on June
27, 1920. A Griffin hickory grafted in 1915 which is now 2-1/2" in
diameter had 81 nuts on it on the same date. There seems to be no
question but that anyone who has land with hickory trees one to four
inches in diameter can easily and quickly change them into orchards of
hickories bearing fine nuts by top working.