y to be persuaded that a
substitution of nuts for flesh foods, even on a very large scale, would
be not only a perfectly safe procedure, but one which would be followed
by the most desirable results.

The use of nuts as a staple article of food is not an experiment. All
the higher apes, man's nearest relatives in the animal world, thrive on
nuts. Many savage tribes live almost entirely on nuts. The Indians of
the foothills of California gather every fall large quantities of nuts
which they store for winter use. The early settlers of California
reported also that many tribes of Indians in that part of the United
States lived almost wholly upon acorns. Before the great oak forests of
this country were cut down for lumber, millions of hogs were fattened on
mast, and the price of pork depended more upon the acorn crop than on
the corn crop. The peasantry of southern France and northern Italy
during half the year make two meals a day on chestnuts.

The objection commonly urged, that nuts are too expensive to enter
largely into the ordinary bill of fare, at first sight appears to be
valid, but upon examination this objection almost, if not wholly,
disappears. For example, a pound of pine nuts which is more than the
equivalent in nutritive value to two and a half pounds of the best
beefsteak and two-thirds of a pound of butter, can be bought wholesale
for twenty-five cents. The cost of the equivalent food value in meat and
butter would be at least sixty to seventy cents, or more than double the
cost of the nuts. A pound of almonds can be bought at wholesale for
forty cents, and has food value equal to that of meat which would cost a
dollar or more. A pound of peanuts can be bought at wholesale for seven
or eight cents, and furnishes nutritive value equivalent to more than a
pound of beefsteak and a half a pound of butter, which would cost
forty-five to fifty cents, or seven times as much. No objection can be
offered to the fact that we are comparing wholesale with retail prices,
for the reason that nuts do not readily spoil as do meat and butter, but
will keep in perfect condition for months. Further it is entirely
reasonable to suppose that the price of nuts may sometime in the future
be considerably reduced when the cultivation of nuts becomes more
general, and especially when the United States Forestry Department
becomes convinced that it would be a sensible thing to cover with nut
trees some of the large areas which have