pasture may be utilized for nut-growing. The trees require little
attention, but will produce bushels of nuts if the soil is properly
stirred and fertilized every year. One man in Connecticut raises each
year 100 bushels of hickory nuts from ten trees, and sells them at $2 a
bushel. The rocky, waste lands of New England can grow millions of these
trees. Chestnuts can be grown cheaper than wheat. The standard price is
$4 to $8 per bushel, but large chestnuts, early in the season, that is,
in September and October, bring from $10 to $15 per bushel. Judge Salt,
of Burlington, N. J., says he has a chestnut tree in the middle of a
wheat field that pays more than the wheat. The average is about $19 per
tree, and twenty trees have ample room in an acre. This makes $300 per
acre with but little cost for cultivation. Here is something of
importance about the pecan. The chief pomologist at Washington, D. C.,
says: “The cultivation of nuts will soon be one of the greatest and most
profitable industries in the United States, and there is no use in
denying the fact that the Texas soft shell pecan is the favorite nut of
the world.” The average yield of these nuts in North Carolina is $300 to
$500 per acre. Some pecan trees in New Jersey are producing annually
five to six bushels of delicious, thin-shelled nuts.