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The Department of Agriculture at Washington is pursuing the plan of distributing,on special recommendation of congressmen for each donation, choice and desirable varieties of seedlings, which people shall find it worth their while to plant. Extensive plantations of budded and grafted seedlings have been set out on the government's experiment farm at Arlington, across the Potomac, and from this source the supply of trees required for distribution is drawn. Large quantities of tree seeds, such as those of the Kentucky coffee trees, and the "burr oak" which bears the largest acorns produced by any species of oak native to North America, are shipped free to applicants. In this way many bushels of paper-shelled pecan nuts, four times the ordinary size, and obtained from a few freak trees that are scattered through the "pecan belt," have already been sent out for planting. Uncle Sam aims especially to encourage the cultivation of improved varieties of nut trees, such as the pecan, the Persian walnut, certain other kinds of valuable walnuts from Japan, and the hazel nut. Of the last named, otherwise known as the filbert, the government has secured a new species from Washington state, that grows on a tree sixty feet long, which, because the stem is too slender to hold itself upright, runs along the ground like a vine. The "vine" bears pods, in each of which are found two filberts, in place of the usual single one. It has also procured "bud wood" of the veritable Jordan almond for the first time from Spain. Many millions of pounds of Jordan almonds are now imported into the United States annually. The Department of Agriculture employs the services of half a dozen "agricultural explorers," whose business it is to ransack every corner of the world for whatever seems desirable in the way of new or valuable plants. The same man who secured the Jordan almond, notwithstanding the obstacles thrown in his way by Spanish growers, sent over not long ago "bud wood" of some wonderful Persian walnuts, which are six times the size of ordinary ones, and deliciously flavored. The wood has been used for grafts on common walnut seedlings, and already some thousands of the grafted trees are on hand. The growing of Persian (otherwise known as "English") walnuts has become an important industry in Southern California during the last few years, the annual crop amounting to more than 2,000,000 pounds. There are other and valuable kinds of walnuts which the Department of Agriculture is propagating with the help of buds and grafts, and one of these is the so-called "Japanese walnut," somewhat smaller than the Persian, with a pointed shell and a deliciously flavored, though more oily, kernel. There is also the "Siebold" walnut, from Japan, of which a large number of grafted seedlings have been raised. Its nuts are not large, but are of excellent quality, and the husks containing them are borne in clusters somewhat like grapes. A grove of pecan trees will easily give in ten years an annual profit of $1,000 an acre. A full-grown pecan tree of the ordinary kind produces two barrels of nuts each season, worth $15 a barrel, wholesale. The cultivated chestnut is being grown in superior varieties. Improved by grafting, the nuts bid fair to be of giant size and exquisite flavor. The Department of Agriculture is doing its best to encourage the cultivation of the cocoanut palm in Florida, where large plantations are already in bearing. The kernels of 500 cocoanuts yield one hundredweight of oil, and it takes about 240 of the nuts to produce a hundredweight of copra, which is the dried kernel. The kernels of three average cocoanuts give one pound of the dried "meat." About 40,000,000 cocoanuts are used for confectionery annually.
WHAT THE WEATHER MAN DOES |
