reserves in
the form of fruitful nut trees can be established at relative light
initial investment or of continuing care and labor on almost every farm
and by many a roadside in much of our farming territory. Black walnut,
butternut, shag bark, shell bark, beech and other hardy, long-lived
native trees can be established at low cost in large numbers for beauty,
shade, and food production. Nor should the possibilities of Persian
walnut, Japanese walnut, and native hazel be disregarded in favored
sections.

While none of these are entirely free from plant diseases or insect
pests, they are, when once established, capable of maintaining
themselves fairly clean and sound with little expenditure for spraying
or other attention during the growing season when the peak load
activities of the farm are on. Why should not their planting receive
more attention and encouragement from our horticultural and other rural
societies? For rough land and roadside planting they are decidedly more
practical in most sections than any of our fruit trees, substantially
all of which require spraying and tillage to maintain productiveness, or
in fact to avoid becoming nuisances by harboring pests to contaminate
the commercial orchards of the neighborhoods. While much has been said
in America in commendation of the roadside planting of fruit trees so
common in portions of Europe, and while there are possibilities of
useful development along this line, most American efforts in this
direction have proved disappointing because of the impracticability of
giving the trees the care and attention they require. While often
promising at the start they have quickly become infested with San Jose
and other scales, borers, blights and rots which can only be prevented
or controlled by systematic and thorough remedial measures, rarely
possible on rough lands, in fence rows and on roadsides.

If this type of nut culture is sufficiently promising to be worth while,
do we not need to attack its problems from a somewhat different angle
than has become our custom with the trees which are to be grown under
intensive cultural conditions at high maintenance cost, such as more and
more characterizes our orcharding?

It has seemed to me for some time that in this field we need to return
in our study of varieties and strains of nut trees to the standards and
ideals of the earlier and ruder period of American Pomology when
rusticity of tree, including storm endurance, fre