making dietetic experiments and lived three months on a diet such as I
have suggested, at an average expense of exactly six cents a day. This
was the total amount expended for raw foodstuffs. I paid my landlady
five times as much for preparing and serving the food, and had reason
for believing that some portion of my supplies was utilized by others
than myself. As evidence of the fact that the experiment was not
dangerous, I may add that I have pursued the same meatless dietary
during my entire lifetime since, as I had done for ten years before, and
I am still alive and hard at work. Man is naturally a frugivorous
animal. According to Cuvier, the great French naturalist, the natural
diet of human beings, like that of those other primates, the
orangoutang, the chimpanzee, and the gorilla, consists of fruits, nuts,
tender shoots and cereals. A sturdy Scotch highlander informed me that
his diet consisted of brose, bannocks, and potatoes, and that he rarely
ever tasted meat. When asked what he fed his dogs, he replied, "The same
as I eat myself, sir." The high-bred foxhounds of the southern states
are fed on cornmeal, oatmeal and bread, and rarely taste flesh of any
sort. Dogs thus fed are hardier, healthier, have more endurance, better
wind, keener scent, greater intelligence, and are more easily trained
than meat-fed dogs. A diet which is safe for carnivorous animals, must
certainly be safe for human beings, who belong to a class of animals all
representatives of which, with the exception of man are flesh
abstainers.
Some years ago I experimented with various sorts of carnivorous animals
for the purpose of ascertaining whether nuts could be made a complete
substitute for meat. Among the various animals utilized for the
experiment was a young wolf from the northwest that had never eaten
anything but fresh raw meat. After giving the animal one day to get
accustomed to its new surroundings and to acquire a good appetite, I
gave him a breakfast of nuts properly prepared and was delighted to find
that he took to the new ration without the slightest hesitation and
remained in excellent health during the several months of the
experiment. I succeeded perfectly in substituting nuts for meat with all
the animals experimented upon, including a fish hawk, with the single
exception of an old bald-headed eagle, which refused to be converted.
I have a suspicion that the so-called carnivorous animals were all at
some remote time nut eaters; the so-called carnivorous teeth would be as
useful in tearing off the husks of cocoanuts and similar fruits, as for
tearing and eating flesh.
An economic argument for the general adoption of nuts as a suitable
article of food is the enormous increase in food resources which such a
change would bring about. Some years ago, an experienced stock-raiser
informed the writer that it takes two acres of land and two years to
produce a steer weighing 600 pounds when dressed. Fresh meat is
three-fourths water; hence the food material actually represented by
such an animal would be considerably less than one hundred and fifty
pounds, allowing for the weight of the bones. The food value, estimated
as dried meat, would be about sixteen hundred calories per pound, or the
same as an equal quantity of wheat meal. That is, an acre of land would
produce in the form of beef, the food equivalent of seventy-five pounds
of wheat in two years, whereas, a single acre of grain would produce on
an average, even when poorly cultivated, in two crops not less than
thirty-two bushels of more than 1900 pounds of wheat, or more than
twenty-five times as much food as the same land would produce in the
same length of time in the form of beef. Humboldt showed that the banana
would furnish sustenance for twenty-five times as many people as could
be nourished by the wheat produced by the same area of land; and
according to Hutchinson, the chestnut tree is capable of producing on a
given area a still larger amount of nutrient material than the banana.
In other words, an acre of ground covered with chestnut trees in full
bearing will furnish food for more than six hundred times as many people
as could be supported by the same area devoted to meat production.
As a source of protein and fats the nut is vastly superior to the ox and
the pig. The nut is sweeter, cleaner, safer, healthier and cheaper than
any possible source of animal products.
This choicest product of Nature's laboratory is just beginning to be
appreciated. When the Nut Growers' Association celebrates its one
hundredth anniversary, it is safe to predict that the descendants of the
present generation of nut growers who have followed the example of their
forebears, will be living in opulence and will be regarded as the
saviors of their country, while the great abattoirs and meat packing
establishments will have ceased to exist, and the merry click of the nut
cracker will be heard throughout the land.
EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER FROM COLONEL J. C. COOPER, OF McMINNVILLE,
OREGON, PRESIDENT OF THE WESTERN WALNUT ASSOCIATION.
(Prepared by W. J. SPILLMAN, Chief of the Office of Farm Management U.
S. Dept. of Agr., to be read at the 7th Annual Meeting of the N. N. G.
A.)
It is probable that the prominence given the walnut growing industry in
Oregon and the Northwest is greater than the finished product will
justify at present, yet it is growing all the time in spite of the
methods in use. I say in spite of the methods rather than because of the
methods in use, for the reason that hundreds of thousands of trees have
been set out in the last ten or twelve years, a majority of which have
failed to meet the expectations of the would-be growers. These
expectations, however, have been based largely on the statements of boom
literature of those who have trees and lands for sale. We have much land
in Western Oregon that is suited to the growing of walnuts, and some
trees and orchards that are doing well, but there are more individual
trees that are giving their owners profits than there are orchards.
The industry will continue to grow, I will repeat again, in spite of the
cultural methods we use, but we must certainly change our methods or our
trees, or both. The excellence of the Oregon walnut is beyond question.
The gold and silver medals that we have captured, as well as the
testimony of dealers who are bidding for our product for their fancy
trade, is evidence of its excellent quality. But there are many things
that enter in the making of the perfect nut. Even after the tree has
cast down its golden shower of the finest product, the gathering,
washing and drying makes for the sweetness of the nut. When I see men
who make a success in other lines of horticulture and farming pulling
out walnut trees because they have planted a cheap lot or are too
impatient for the harvest, and others bringing sackfulls of the finest
nuts to market, discolored and dirty from having lain on the wet ground
for days and weeks, I sometimes think that it is a long, long way to
Tipperary.
But my heart's right there, and our association is doing heroic work,
although but two years old; we get our committees together two or three
times a year, compare notes and crack the whip for another run. Then
when we get together in annual convention there is something doing. We
cut out the frills and get at once to business. No welcomes by the mayor
and response by Colonel Long Bow with a brass band, but rather like the
women at the fish market: "Have yees any nice fish, Mrs. Maloney?"
"Indade, I have, Mrs. Flanigan." "They stink." "You lie." And that is
the way our fight usually starts, only not so vigorously, of course.
We have one committee that is all important and is doing fine work. The
committee on seedling varieties is making a survey of the western states
to find a variety or varieties best suited to the soil and climate of
the different localities. This committee includes the best men available
for that work; H. M. Williamson, secretary of our state board of
horticulture, chairman; C. I. Lewis, chief of division of horticulture,
Corvallis; Leon D. Batchelor, experiment station, Riverside, California;
A. A. Quarnberg, grower and experimenter, Vancouver, Washington; E. W.
Mathews, extensive planter, Portland, and Charles L. McNary, planter,
Salem. Mr. McNary told me yesterday that he had made a survey of
thirty-five very fine trees, on blank cards similar to the one enclosed.
We expect to have the record of at least 200 trees by the time of our
convention. Only those that approach the standard wanted are listed.
To give the product of the walnut crop of the state would only be a wild
guess. The system and machinery that we have for finding out how much we
raise is only in embryo. The estimates reach all the way from 100,000 to
500,000 pounds. There is a good crop this year and the output for the
market is growing rapidly. We need education more than we do growers.
But we are learning.
I want to give you some facts of things that I find. Yesterday at the
orchard of Alex Lafollette, State Senator from Marion county, and peach
king of the Willamette Valley, I found seven-year-old walnut trees
planted in rows among his peach trees, walnut trees planted sixteen feet
apart! He said that his trees were full of little walnuts in the spring,
but they all dropped off, and he did not think they would do well there.
He said there were no catkins on the little trees, which accounts for
the failure of his crop. This he did not know. And he did not know that
the trees would produce the catkins in a year or so and remedy the
failures. In the famous Dundee orchards I picked up handfuls of little
fibrous roots, photo of which I sent you, that had been torn up by the
plow and harrow when cultivating the walnut trees. Bales of these roots
could be gathered up from the ground under the trees. The owner said
that it did the trees good to treat them that way. Another black walnut
tree that I visited in a cultivated field of good deep, rich soil, I
found walnut roots protruding from the plowed ground as far away as 108
feet from the tree. The tree was thirty or forty years old.
It would add greatly to the walnut industry of the future if the Forest
Service would plant black walnuts in the hills and mountains between
here and the coast. You know in that burnt timber section and various
localities in the coast mountains there are many places where eight or
ten nut trees to the acre would soon give a good account of themselves.
If properly planted, in five or ten years they could be topgrafted to a
good English variety and add greatly to the value of the public domain
as well as the food products of the nation. We have no native walnuts,
but almost every variety under the sun will grow here.
WESTERN WALNUT ASSOCIATION.
SEEDLING WALNUT TREE RECORD.
No....... Made............. 191........ by.........................
Owner..............................................................
P. O.................... State.............. Route.................
Exact location.....................................................
NUT--Origin........................................................
Variety..................................... planted...............
TREE--Origin................................ age now...............
Transplanted 19................ Dia. trunk.........................
Height................................. spread.....................
DATES--of budding out..............................................
catkin blooms......................... nut blooms..................
leaves fall........................... nuts fall...................
in 1-lb. kernel wt............... oz. shell wt................. oz.
NUTS--Per tree........... lbs. In cluster............ in lb.......
round,.. oval,.. pointed,.. smooth,.... not well sealed............
KERNEL--light, dark, not easily removed from shell. Tannin--little
excessive.
Tree vigor............ Blight................ per cent.............
PRESENT AT 1916 MEETING
L. H. Ott, 1746 T St., Washington
J. C. Smith, House of Rep. P. O.
Fred. L. Fishback, 609 Union Trust Bldg., Washington
Mr. and Mrs. W. E. Chamberlin, 44 R St., N. E.
Dr. Taylor, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture
Dr. True, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture
Miss F. Cadel, Shepard St., Chevy Chase, Md.
F. S. Holmes, Ag. Ex. Sta., College Park, Md.
Dr. Hassall, Bowie, Md.
M. P. Reed, Vincennes, Ind.
Carl Poll, Danville
Harry R. Weber, Cincinnati
J. Russell Smith, Round Hill
E. B. Crockett, Monroe, Va.
R. T. Morris, N. Y. City
W. C. Deming, Conn.
Mrs. W. C. Deming
Jacob L. Rife, Camp Hill, Pa., R. D. 1
Paul White, Bowie, Md.
John H. Fisher, Jr.
Mrs. John H. Fisher, Jr., Bradshaw, Md.
Miss Ellen M. Littlepage
Miss Louise Littlepage
John Littlepage
C. A. Van Duzee
W. N. Hutt
W. N. Roper
R. T. Olcott
T. P. Littlepage
Dr. Van Fleet, Glendale, Md.
A. C. Shepherd, Washington
Chas. S. Hayden, Baltimore
C. A. Reed, Washington
Mrs. Reed
W. Bathon, Star reporter
Henry Stabler, Washington
H. M. Simpson, Vincennes
C. S. Ridgway, Lumberton
Mrs. Ridgway
C. P. Close
M. B. Waite
R. L. McCoy
Dr. Ira Ulman
Rev. E. N. Kirby, Ballston, Va.
S. M. McMurran, Washington
Dr. Augustus Stabler, 45 R St., N. E., Washington
C. M. Stearns, 1833 Dumont St., Washington
E. C. Pomeroy
A. D. Robinson, Washington
James Tindaw, Waterbury, Md.
Miss Katherine Stuart, Alexandria, Va.
Henry T. Finley, Rockville, Md.
Mrs. Finley
Mrs. F. L. Mulford, Washington, D. C.
B. Eyre, Washington
Mrs. Eyre
J. G. Rush
J. F. Jones
Dr. Kellermann
Dr. Haven Metcalf
Miss Martha Rush
Miss Sarah Garvin, Lancaster
H. A. Stewart, Jeannerette, La.
Mr. Bryan, Bowie
Miss Edna McNaughton, Middleville, Mich.
Mr. C. E. Emig, Washington, D. C.
A. C. Brown, Lanham, Md.
Vincennes Nurseries
W. C. REED, Proprietor
VINCENNES, INDIANA, U. S. A.
PROPAGATORS AND INTRODUCERS
_Budded and Grafted Pecans, Hardy Northern Varieties_
_English (Persian) Walnut Grafted on Black Walnut_
_Best Northern and French Varieties_
_Grafted Thomas Black Walnut_
_Grafted Persimmons, best sorts Hardy Almonds_
_Filberts and Hazelnuts_
_Also General Line Nursery Stock_
SPECIAL NUT CATALOGUE ON REQUEST
* * * * *
JONES' PENNSYLVANIA GROWN
NUT TREES WILL SUCCEED WITH YOU.
WRITE FOR A COPY OF MY 1917 CATALOGUE
AND NEW PRICE LIST
_If interested in the propagation of nut
trees or top-working seedling trees, ask
for a copy of my booklet on propagation
and list of tools..._
J. F. JONES, The Nut Tree Specialist
LANCASTER, PA.
_Northern Nut Trees_
_Why Plant Nut Trees?_
_Varieties_:
PECANS.
BLACK WALNUTS.
ENGLISH WALNUTS.
HICKORY NUTS.
WHEN TO SET NUT TREES.
HOW TO SET NUT TREES.
DISTANCE APART TO SET NUT TREES.
SOIL FOR NUT TREES.
FERTILIZER FOR NUT TREES.
NUT TREES AS ORNAMENTALS.
NUT TREES FOR PROFIT.
Do you want to know about all of the above? If
so, write for our beautiful illustrated catalogue for
1917.
_Maryland Nut Nurseries_
BOWIE, MARYLAND.
THOMAS P. LITTLEPAGE PAUL WHITE
P. S. We forgot to say that we not only have the
answers to the above but we also have the trees.
M. N. N.
CHESTER VALLEY NURSERIES
ESTABLISHED 1853
Choice Fruit and Ornamental Trees, Cherry Trees
on Mazzard Roots, Hardy Evergreens, Flowering
Shrubs, Hedge Plants, etc. Originators of the
THOMAS BLACK WALNUT
JOS. W. THOMAS & SONS, King of Prussia P. O., MONTGOMERY CO., PENNA.
* * * * *
A GOOD WAY TO KEEP POSTED IS TO READ THE MONTHLY
AMERICAN NUT JOURNAL
OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE NORTHERN ASSOCIATION
SUBSCRIPTION--$1.25 per year; ADVERTISING-16 Cents per Agate
three years, $3.00; Canada line; $2.10 per inch.
and foreign, 50c. extra.
AMERICAN FRUITS PUBLISHING CO., Inc., ROCHESTER, N. Y.