These figures from U. S. Government reports show that any one who assumes that nuts are a holiday luxury is entirely wrong. That the public wants nut meat the year round, that the only drawback to a still greater increase in consumption is the shortage of the supply of fine nuts is proved by United States Department of Agriculture figures.
When J. C. Cooper wrote in a leading agricultural weekly:
“The demand for walnuts is growing much faster than the supply. We do not produce in America more than twenty per cent. of what we consume, and it will take fifty to a hundred years, with all the encouragement of the nut experts, to raise enough walnuts to supply the home demand.”
he stated a condition which applies with manifold greater force to the consumption of pecan nuts.
It is true that the California production of Walnuts doubled during ten years, while the importation trebled—yet in spite of this five-fold production English Walnuts constantly increased in price. Since then the price of walnuts has increased steadily every year, despite increase of supply until in November, 1918, the price per pound was 80% higher than at the same time in 1914, according to the Monthly Crop Report for December, 1918. Yet the 1918 crop was nearly twice as large as in 1914, according to Statistician H. E. Pastor, well known as an authority on western crops.
The price of pecans increased 50% on the commonest sorts between 1900 and 1910; and from the December, 1918, Monthly Crop Report we see that the 1918 price per pound on all pecans was over 38% higher than for 1917; Georgia, which has the largest percentage of paper shell pecans, showing the highest price per pound.
The Finer The Nut—The Greater The Demand
Increased demand is for finer nuts
It is true that in Walnuts a condition has come about as in other nuts—that the increasing demand is for the finer, higher priced grades. What are the points of superiority that have led to this great increase in public demand? Why are old established black walnut trees less valuable as profit producers than English Walnut trees only a quarter as old and producing only a fraction of the quantity of nuts?
First—Thinness of shell and ability to get out the kernels whole.