One acre of walnut trees will produce every year food equal to:
| 14,000 lbs. red bass (a ship load). |
| 3,000 lbs. beef (five steers). |
| 7,500 lbs. chicken broilers. |
| 15,000 lbs. lobsters. |
| 10,000 lbs. oysters. |
| 60,000 eggs (5,000 dozen). |
| 4,000 qts. milk. |
| A ton of mutton (13 sheep). |
| 250,000 frogs. |
And when one acre will do so much, think of the product of a million acres.
Ten times the product of all the fisheries of the country.
Half as much as all the poultry of the country.
One seventh as much as all the beef produced.
More than twice the value of all the sheep.
Half as much as all the pork.
And many millions of acres may be thus utilized in nut culture.
And the walnut is not the only promising food tree. The hickory,
the pecan, the butternut, the filbert and the piñon
are all capable of producing equal or greater results.
A single acre of nut trees will produce protein enough to feed four persons a year and fat enough for twice that number of average persons. So 25,000,000 acres of nut trees would more than supply the whole people of the United States with their two most expensive food stuffs. Cereals and fresh vegetables, our cheapest foods, would be needed for the carbohydrate portion of the dietary. Just think of it. A little nut orchard 200 miles square supplying one-third enough food to feed one hundred million of citizens. The trouble is the frogs and cattle are eating up our food supplies. We feed a steer 100 pounds of food and get back only 2.8 pounds. If we plant 10 pounds of corn we get back 500 pounds. If we plant one walnut we get back in twenty harvests a ton of choicest food. In nut culture there is a treasury of wealth and health and national prosperity and safety that is at present little appreciated.
Here is a veritable treasury of wealth, a potential food supply which may save the world from any suggestion of hunger for centuries to come if properly utilized. Every man who cuts down a timber tree should be required to plant a nut tree. A nut tree has a double value. It produces valuable timber and yields every year a rich harvest of food while it is growing.
Every highway should be lined with nut trees. Nut trees will grow on land on which no other crop will grow and which is even worthless for grazing. The piñon flourishes in the bleak and barren peaks of the rockies.
The nut should no longer be considered a table luxury. It should become a staple article of food and may most profitably replace the pork and meats of various sorts which are inferior foods and are recognized as prolific sources of disease.
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. As the late Prof. Virchow said, "The future is with the vegetarians."