,
covered with hard wood timber. In Bureau County the hickory, the hazel,
the walnut and butternut grow with a great deal of vigor; less than two
blocks from me there is an ordinary sweet chestnut brought from the East
by a gentleman a great many years ago. I measured it last fall and it is
six feet nine inches in circumference, it has a spread of about sixty
feet and it is about seventy-five feet high. The neighbors told me that
they got a bushel of chestnuts every year off that one tree. I presume
if they took better care of it and gave it some fertilization they would
get more than that. I happen to be the chairman of the tree committee of
the Bird and Tree Club. The city of Decatur purchased 42 trees and
planted them in seven parks of the city of Decatur; members of the Bird
and Tree Club came to me for advice and last year I placed 114 trees for
them. They placed a number of trees with the Oberlin Conservatory of
Music, chestnut trees, and they planted them on the campus. I believe
that persons who are associated with different clubs would take up the
matter of nut growing. That means that you can interest the children and
if you can interest the children then you get the parents interested. In
Macon County alone the county surveyor told me there are 20,000 acres of
ground that are absolutely worthless except for pasture because they
form bluff land along the Sangamon river. It isn't a large stream, I
suppose down here you would call it a creek, but the city has put a dam
across the river and trees were planted. I tried to create a sentiment
to have that shore planted with nut trees instead of ash and elm and the
various trees that can bear nothing but leaves, but the hardest thing in
the world is to start a new idea.

An ordinary crop of nuts after a tree commences bearing is worth a great
deal more than a crop of wheat or oats and in the meantime you can use
the ground under it if you want to.

Now these are simply my individual efforts in Macon County to get people
interested in nut-bearing trees. It is a hard road and I am like some
other people, I don't like to be pointed out as a crank, but I am pretty
near that on this subject. With the co-operation of Mr. Reed a year ago
I delivered an address, illustrated with pictures that were supplied by
the Bureau of Plant Industry, on the subject of "The Value of the Nut
Trees for Shade and Food," with the idea of having farm homes made
beautiful by trees and attract