Nut industry

“ Unfortunately for the nut-growing industry, and still more unfortunately for the American people, the claims of nuts to consideration in this re-adjustment of the bill of fare have been generally overlooked, and it seems evident that the only hope for the nut industry lies in the creation of a larger demand for these nutrients from the plant world by acquainting the public with their superlative merits. ”

“ This statement applies to nut culture more than to any other branch of horticulture because it has received less attention from well trained investigators. Much credit is due the members of this association for their patient and painstaking studies. But instead of having a mere handful of men devoting their time to nut investigations, there ought to be several men in each state engaged in working on the numerous problems of vital importance to the nut industry. ”

“ Not only so, but I think knowledge will slowly but surely lead men to change their diet from choice. My children will live to see the time when the acre nut orchard on the average farm will be considered just as useful and as much of a necessity, and far more profitable, than the present chicken yard. In that day I think the nut industry will rank in food importance second only to that of corn, and I believe that the greatest change will be found here in New England, for I believe that nut culture is to change history, and readjust population and industry to some extent. ”

“ And now I appear before you especially to call your attention to this movement and to suggest that this association should appoint a committee to co-operate with a committee from the National Nut Growers' Association and the Almond Growers' Association, and the nut growers of Washington and Oregon in an effort to secure an appropriation from the Department of Agriculture which would commensurate with the needs of the great nut industry in the United States. As we all know, it is entirely in its infancy as a commercial proposition and I doubt not we all agree as to its wonderful possibilities. ”

“ There is evidence on all sides that the people of Michigan are deeply interested in nut culture. Some have invested in pecan lands in the Far South; no doubt some own Persian (English) walnut, almond or filbert orchards on the Pacific Coast; and others are at the point of planting nut trees in Michigan. Everybody would go nutting in fall if he could. Michigan leads all other northern states in what its institutions and some of its people have done toward developing the nut industry. ”

“ I have great hopes for the future of nut growing in the northern states and also for this society. I am confident that new and better varieties of nuts will be found and better methods of propagation and transplanting originated so that in the future there may be a commercial industry in the north. For the present, however, I believe that conservatism is advisable, and that great harm may be done by misrepresentation. Sound growth of a northern nut industry will be built upon facts and honest experience and not on conjecture, hearsay, or even on enthusiasm, however necessary this may be. ”

“ The speaker made the point that shipment of infected trees was killing the tree aspirations of the people who ought to be developing the nut industry. Every time a man buys a chestnut tree and it dies with blight that man is chilled out of business. ”

“ A common error in the minds of the American people is the assumption that to be a success, a thing must be performed upon a large scale. To develop a nut industry, it is imagined that there must be great orchards of hundreds of acres. It is not realized that a great proportion of the walnuts, almonds, filberts, and chestnuts annually imported from Europe, are from roadside, hillside and door-yard trees which could as well have been grown in this country on what is now idle land in thickly populated agricultural districts. ”

“ It is a question how far we, as an Association, are responsible for the care of our fellowmen, but at this period when the industry is new, I feel that it is a very legitimate thing for us to do a little work to try and prevent these people from preying upon our fellowmen. The president remarked this morning that something was an evidence of the tremendous waste in Nature. It is true, Nature, in building a forest, wastes a vast amount of time and energy. These people who are preying upon the nut industry today find as their victims the weaklings which Nature buries in the forest. ”

“ If one one-hundredth of one per cent of this sum should be devoted by those interested in the development of our nut industry in this country for the study of the nutritional and chemical properties of nuts, I feel sure that they would be amply repaid for their investment. ”

“ Ten nut trees planted for each inhabitant will insure the country against any possibility of food shortage. A row of nut trees on each side of our 5,000,000 miles of country roads will provide for a population of 160,000,000. With a vanishing animal industry, nut culture offers the only practical solution of the question of food supply. ”

“ Thus, while at the beginning of the Bureau of Plant Industry, in 1901, there was no single, individual person devoting his time and attention to the problems of nut culture, at present there are quite a group of individuals giving their whole time. I feel we are making progress in the work, and while we may be lagging very much behind what we should like to do, we are assisting as best we can, and are at least keeping in sight of the industry, as it goes forward. ”

“ If we should abandon meat eating in favor of nuts we would not have to worry about what our victuals died of.
By the substitution of nuts for meats all dangers associated with flesh eating may be avoided; hence their use should be encouraged in every practical way. National and state legislators should make liberal appropriations for the study of the soil and climatic conditions best suited to nut culture, and otherwise encourage this infant but most important industry. ”

“ Once in a while we find a grove of them but more often there are six, seven, eight or more trees scattered round the house. The combined result of that industry produces millions of dollars worth of nuts. ”

“ People all over the United States are becoming aware of the value of nuts as food important to men. It is too bad that nuts have not been available on a competitive price basis with other foods, and that luxury prices have limited interest in nuts among the women buyers. A better understanding of the uses and comparative value of nuts is gradually coming about which will result in a tremendous demand on the nut-growing industry, which of course, includes the nurserymen who develop and grow all varieties of nut trees. ”

“ Olcott, I am sure, is willing to give that issue just as soon as we can get more members and more money.
MR. OLCOTT: We are carrying the nut journal on its subscription list. There is no advertising to speak of in this pioneer industry. The nut nurserymen do not advertise; they should. People want to know where they can get nuts, butternuts and hickory nuts. The people in the South who grow pecans are doing a commercial business but they don't have to advertise; they can't furnish enough nuts to meet the demand. There is no occasion for them to ask for customers ”

“ But old John perhaps only looked forward to the shocking seasons to come, when money could not discover a ripe common hazel nut, as has been the case for years now in our nut wood jungles, that used every year to flood the country with myriads of sacks of nuts, every one full to the bung, in cartloads at the Beauly markets, and in every town and village,—the nut crackers being a regular nuisance, paving every street and road and room with shells for months. The whole people in the country seemed to live with pockets full of nuts, their price being fabulously low. ”

“ When his farm is sold, will the new owner sense the hand of the master and watch carefully over the walnuts and hickories, or will he cut them down?
I suppose that death brings an end to many a business, but the nut business is a new one, and a slow one, too. It is regretted that a life time of patient care and painstaking research is lost to us and to nut culture.
True, a nut specialist will not keep death from the door of nut growers, nor will he save their groves from destruction, but he can keep a record of each grower's trees. ”

“ He was zealous, original and energetic, and did a lot to create interest in nut culture in his state and other midwest areas. Of him, as of others who have labored faithfully for an ideal and passed to their reward, may it be truly said, "The just die in their turn, but falling as the flowers, they leave on earth their fruit that outlives them." ”

“ I know of numbers of teachers, doctors and other poor people who have put money into nut promotion schemes without knowing anything about the ultimate prospect of profit.
Mr. Hutt: One noticeable thing about the promoter's literature is that he never knows anything about crop failure, and in the agricultural and horticultural world that is a thing that is painfully evident to a man who has been in business a great length of time. In the promoter's literature it is just a matter of multiplication; if one tree will produce so much in a year, a hundred trees will produce a hundred times as much. ”

“ Nine men are leaving the farm today for every one going there. If you don't believe it, read the census statistics. The reason is labor and because you can't afford to pay it. I don't think there is any profit in selling the black walnut as a nut, but there will be profit in gathering that nut, storing it, and, when your farm crops are all in and you are ready to discharge the labor, put up an ordinary cheap cracking shed and let them crack the nuts for you, and sell the meats. ”

“ I think we are selfish in asking these men to give so much of their time and attention and money to the affairs of this association without giving them better support. If we have more members we will have more money and more members will bring more members. This propaganda will be spread far and wide. The interest in nut culture is growing by leaps and bounds. I think this is the time to strike as a scientific organization. [Pg 62] I think the Northern Nut Growers' Association is the most scientific of all of the nut growing associations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The American Nut Journal has given crop and market conditions of southern pecans and California walnuts and almonds; and, in peace times, of foreign nut crops. What else is there to give? The native nut crop? But that concerns this association about as much as the blueberry and huckleberry crops of the Michigan and Minnesota barrens concerns the horticultural societies and the National Apple Growers. What the brokers, wholesale grocers and commission merchants want is crop and market reports on cultivated nuts. But where are they? The public and the middlemen are calling for nuts. ”

“ It is practical to plant nuts for the purpose of getting a stock, but not for the purpose of getting nuts. But we plant them in the nursery rows, and then when they are two years old, preferably (some like three-year-old trees) , we graft them over to good kinds in the nursery row; then they remain there for a year or two, and are transferred or sold. We now have members of this association who are experts in grafting nut trees who make that a business. It is not generally known that we have in this country three journals devoted wholly to the subject of nut culture. ”

“ The men who spent this money would gladly have furnished the land, labor, capital and management for a nut breeding program had we been there to have sold them on nut trees.
As Mr. Churchill said—"Too little and too late."
But members of the NNGA forget "what might have been." New estates are developing and younger men are wondering how they can immortalize their lives and work. Men pass away; their names perish from record and recollection; their history is only a tale and their tombstone becomes a ruin, but a good nut tree bearing a man's name, gives that name immortality. ”

“ It seems to me we must recognize that nut culture is in its experimental stage only. This is in fact one thing that makes it particularly attractive for the amateur.
Another reason for our conservatism is that we feel it our duty to the growers to give out statements which are based upon facts only. If a man in a northern state wants to plant ten acres of nuts what shall we tell him? ”

“ Let us find athletes, baseball men, wrestlers, fighters, runners, men who stand well in popular sports and who will publicly state that they substitute nuts for meat in part at least. We must put this thing into the popular imagination of the plain people if it is to be of full importance. When some fellow with a new brand of cigarettes wants to develop a trade among young men, he gets some noted ball player to write a letter stating his love for that brand. I think we should follow that plan somewhat in putting our nut campaign before the people. ”

“ If such a movement as this had been taken in this country in the planting of nut trees in former years our roadsides today would be more beautiful, the country more healthy, the farmer more independent, having these side crops that require little labor and that could be marketed at leisure. Our soldier boys might today have sealed cartons of nut meats included in their rations on the European battle fronts that would be very acceptable as food and add little to their burden. ”