article of food is the enormous increase in food resources which such a
change would bring about. Some years ago, an experienced stock-raiser
informed the writer that it takes two acres of land and two years to
produce a steer weighing 600 pounds when dressed. Fresh meat is
three-fourths water; hence the food material actually represented by
such an animal would be considerably less than one hundred and fifty
pounds, allowing for the weight of the bones. The food value, estimated
as dried meat, would be about sixteen hundred calories per pound, or the
same as an equal quantity of wheat meal. That is, an acre of land would
produce in the form of beef, the food equivalent of seventy-five pounds
of wheat in two years, whereas, a single acre of grain would produce on
an average, even when poorly cultivated, in two crops not less than
thirty-two bushels of more than 1900 pounds of wheat, or more than
twenty-five times as much food as the same land would produce in the
same length of time in the form of beef. Humboldt showed that the banana
would furnish sustenance for twenty-five times as many people as could
be nourished by the wheat produced by the same area of land; and
according to Hutchinson, the chestnut tree is capable of producing on a
given area a still larger amount of nutrient material than the banana.
In other words, an acre of ground covered with chestnut trees in full
bearing will furnish food for more than six hundred times as many people
as could be supported by the same area devoted to meat production.

As a source of protein and fats the nut is vastly superior to the ox and
the pig. The nut is sweeter, cleaner, safer, healthier and cheaper than
any possible source of animal products.

This choicest product of Nature's laboratory is just beginning to be
appreciated. When the Nut Growers' Association celebrates its one
hundredth anniversary, it is safe to predict that the descendants of the
present generation of nut growers who have followed the example of their
forebears, will be living in opulence and will be regarded as the
saviors of their country, while the great abattoirs and meat packing
establishments will have ceased to exist, and the merry click of the nut
cracker will be heard throughout the land.

EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER FROM COLONEL J. C. COOPER, OF McMINNVILLE,
OREGON, PRESIDENT OF THE WESTERN WALNUT ASSOCIATION.

(Prepared by W. J. SPILLMAN, Chief of the Office of Farm Management U.
S.