In the State of New York, taking into account only improved roads coming under the head of State or County Improved Highways, disregarding the mileage of the rural roads several times as large, there are about 8,000 miles of "Good Roads". There are many stretches of the highways which nature has generously adorned with trees. Some portions of the roads have witnessed the spoliation of the contractor's indiscriminating ax, but in the main the workmen were as careful as possible to retain natural shade trees along the routes. A few miles comparatively, were planted by state agencies. Farmers, especially in the Lake Ontario Fruit Belt of New York State, have worked wonders in ornamentation and economy by planting cherry, apple, plum and other beautiful and productive trees on the strip of land, "The Farms by the Side of the Road."
At a very small additional expense, the State could have planted every rod of improved highway with productive trees, putting that forethoughtful specification into the contracts.
Get out your pencil for a moment. Suppose the state had English walnuts on the 8,000 miles, placing the trees 40 feet apart. We should have growing then over one million productive trees and some of them would be old enough to be bearing today. Within ten years from now, their product would be worth at a conservative estimate $25 per tree, representing a sum sufficient to carry one-third of the State's entire cost of government.
The war just won for the cause of World Democracy has opened the eyes of the American people to many things they had not before apprehended or realized. One is the value of productive land space. Another is the importance of our forests, and especially the value of the native nut-bearing trees. It was discovered, when Uncle Sam scurried around to procure a supply of black walnut for gun stocks, that the German agents had been ahead of him. Although thickly settled, Germany finds it profitable to employ one-fourth of its entire area in growing forest trees. Yet it seems the Kaiser's forests were short on this valuable timber, so they picked up all the procurable black walnut in the United States.
This set the New York State Conservation Commissioner thinking and last year he advised farmers to propagate and cultivate the black walnut—a little late for the emergency; but better late than never, especially in this case.
On my little farm near Lockport, N. Y., there is a large black walnut tree, perhaps 90 to 100 years old. It bears a nut of unusual size, of excellent taste and good keeping qualities. This tree has produced as high as ten bushels of shucked nuts in a season. Twenty-two years ago, when the importance of growing native nut trees had impressed but few people, I did have the good sense to plant several dozen nuts from the "Niagara King Walnut." I must confess I gave the trees little attention, and a farm hand zealously cut down all but one of the black walnuts, mistaking them for sumac. The survivor last year bore about three bushels of nuts. Most interesting of all is the result of observations as to the product, and its bearing on the question of whether or not nut trees will reproduce "true to variety." The walnuts from the young tree differ in shape, being almost round, while the fruit of the parent tree is almost chestnut in form. But the flavor, thickness of shell and the keeping qualities seem identical.
Six years ago I started a small black walnut and butternut tree nursery for home use and from it have set out about four hundred trees along the ditches and fences on the farm. The early plantings have attained a height of from 12 to 15 feet. If every farmer would do likewise, he would make a considerable addition to the country's food supply, to say nothing of the value of the timber for coming generations when the frees approach maturity. It has afforded me pleasure to send nut trees to friends in various counties of the state and we shall watch with interest, the reports on their growth and development under the many variations of soil and climate. The butternut in many parts of the country is rapidly disappearing. To save this beautiful tree with its delicately flavored nuts, it will undoubtedly be necessary to take it into extensive cultivation.
Although apart from the subject perhaps, it may be interesting to refer to the application of forestry to a woodlot containing native nut trees. Like many farmers who regard every tree as just a tree, useful for timber or fire wood, I found several years ago that indiscriminate cutting on my woodlot was destroying walnuts, along with the commoner species of the stand. My first step was to halt the cutting of all black walnuts, hickories, butternuts, oaks and beeches on the seven-acre woodlot. I took an inventory of these trees and found there were 160 shagbark hickories from 10 to 25 years old, five butternuts about 20 years old, and four black walnuts about 25 years old. These, of course, were not "tolerant trees" like the evergreens, and most of them were rapidly deteriorating from being overcrowded by more rapidly growing and less desirable neighbors. All of them had been retarded in growth by the crowded condition of the stand. Inaugurating a process of judicious thinning with a view to giving the nut trees the advantage, the result in a single season was surprising. Under the beneficent influence of ample sun, air and root sustenance, the butternuts and black walnuts bore fine crops for the first time, in the season following the winter thinning process. The young hickories contented themselves with making their first annual growth in years. And, Oh joy of realized hopes, in this the third season since letting the sun into the native nut grove, nearly all of the older shagbark hickories bore their first crops! And now I have a nut plantation, that might have been ere this, burned up as fire-wood, at no expense whatever, since the thinning out process produced a very welcome supply of fire wood in these days of high-priced coal.
In a recent bulletin of the United States Department of Agriculture, "Value to Farm Families of Food, Fuel and use of House," there are some illuminating statistics on "The Farmer's Income" and "The Farmer's Living." It is stated that "the total average of the three items of food, fuel and use of the house for the 950 families (selected from all parts of the United States) is $642, and 66% of $424 of this is furnished by the farm." The Seven Pomeroy Centennial. Trees in one year produced a food product worth and actually sold for about $800 in one year! The average annual production of those seven trees has been over $600 for the last ten years. And what about the labor involved in raising and harvesting the English walnut crop in question? Picking the nuts from the ground, children gladly doing it and earning five cents per basket.
Horace Greeley's undiscovered farm under the first twelve inches was a gold mine when turned up finally; Mr. Pinchot's farm on top rescued from flood and other devastations is worth more money than before. But how about the strip of land along the roadside, an aggregate waste of at least one per cent of the acreages of eastern farms? Well worth reclaiming, and no expensive ditching, irrigation and lumbering involved in the process either. In addition, credit must be given also to this enterprise for the value of ornamentation of the highways and their protection from the elements all seasons of the year.