Mr. Stabler: The Stabler walnut which I have just mentioned, bloomed from the tenth to the twenty-fifth of June. The black walnuts of that neighborhood all came out from a month to six weeks earlier than that, and not a single black walnut tree had blossoms on in that neighborhood, nor a single Persian walnut at the time the Stabler tree blossomed. I believe I am fairly well acquainted there and there was not a single other tree had catkins on at that time, and yet that tree bore a good crop of catkins and a large number of pistillate blossoms and later a good crop of nuts which is fairly good evidence that it must have fertilized itself.
The Chairman: We would like to continue this discussion, but we have another paper that bears on the subject, and I think it will bring out some points in connection with it.
FORAGE NUTS AND THE CHESTNUT AND WALNUT IN EUROPE
J. Russell Smith, Virginia
The great task of American agriculture is to feed our beasts. Approximately nine tenths of the proceeds of American agriculture goes to nourish the quadruped, and man eats the remaining one tenth; therefore, if we want to get clear of the possibility of a crop being overproduced, let us grow something the beast can eat. To say that we will never overproduce food crops for man is ridiculous. It is quite possible, for instance, that we may produce too many Persian walnuts for man's food, but the tree that will produce nuts to feed the beasts is on a firm basis. Pigs are going up and they are going to stay up. If we can get something that will suit Brother Pig we are on a perfectly safe basis, and that is the basis of the chestnut industry in Europe. In large sections of France, from Switzerland to the Atlantic, there are thousands of acres of chestnut trees—a great forage crop. In a few districts it looks like a forested country, on account of the heavy chestnut tree groves. The tenant who takes a farm has certain restrictions placed upon him in the removal and use of the crop. He is not allowed to remove the chestnuts in France. The tenant who takes the farm, signs a contract that he will not sell the chestnuts but will feed them to the pigs so the soil may not be exhausted. They gather them carefully and use them in a number of ways. They make the main bread supply of the people. I have eaten chestnut cake. It is not bad. They treat it exactly as we do corn cake. When they can afford something better, they do so.
At harvest time the chestnuts are put in drying houses, a fire is built under them and after they are thoroughly dried they will keep indefinitely. We find them on the market as dried chestnuts; and I have seen people eating them raw in June of the year after. Chestnut meal is a standard article of consumption and the price is regulated by the price of cornmeal.
I have seen considerable areas planted out regularly in rows of young trees, and alongside of that older ones. They plant on perfectly fine, level ground hundreds of acres of chestnut groves and we find these groves anywhere from twenty-five to one hundred years old. They are very valuable property for the reason that when old there are many cords of wood to the acre, and chestnut wood is valuable.
They have a disease over there called inky root consequently new plantings have largely ceased, though there are some going on. A great reason for planting is that timber means an increase in the value of land. A man who has an old chestnut orchard has land that is worth two hundred dollars an acre for wood alone and the temptation is very strong to sell off the timber and get the money, which process is going on faster than the setting of new orchards. These orchards are on high class agricultural land.
It is quite different in Corsica; the country there is very broken and rough. Some of the hills range up to 6,000 feet, and for a belt of 2,000 feet the chestnut forests are continuous and villages numerous. This island supports a dense population. The principal industry consists of gathering the chestnuts, and for a few weeks the people are very busy putting them away for the year's supply and sending them to market. I stopped at the home of the mayor of a little town and he went back in the barn where he had a bin full of dried chestnuts. He fed some of them to my horse. It is their one crop. Many people have nothing but twenty or thirty or forty acres of chestnuts and a little garden—a little garden made by retaining walls making a terrace that must be tilled by hand. That is the whole sustenance of the people. The value of the land is usually estimated on a tree basis, and very seldom put on a land basis. The value of land covered with trees is from two hundred to three hundred dollars an acre, and land along side of this without trees may be worth but ten dollars. The value of the chestnut trees for wood forms a large part of the sale value. There is some good pasture under these trees.