FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  
ester. But he usually sets nothing but wood trees, which at the end of fifty or a hundred or a hundred and fifty years, we can cut down, and which, during the intervening time, have done nothing but cast shade, drop leaves and retain the soil. My doctrine is that the potentially greatest crop-producing plants are not those on which we now depend for our food, but are the trees,; that the greatest engines for production are not the grasses, but the trees. Our agriculture is an inheritance from the savage, and the savage found that he could do better with annual grains than he could with nut trees, because he didn't know how to improve the nut crop by selection of the trees, while there came involuntarily an improvement in the other crops. No man today knows the parentage of some of the cultivated plants and grains on which we now depend. Thus we came down to the present day of science, with the purely chance discoveries of savages as the main dependence of mankind for the basis of agriculture. We have within a decade discovered the laws of plant breeding. We know a good deal more about it now than ever before and are in a position to start about it very deliberately and with a reasonable certainty that we are going to get certain combinations of qualities if we keep at it long enough. Thus the hickory and walnut offer perfect marvels of possibilities. Look around on these tables and see the size of some of these things. There are hickory nuts 1-1/4 inch long and there are shagbarks as full of meat as pecans and probably quite as good. There are in Kentucky, I am told, hickory nuts that you can take in your fingers and crush. Here we have the pecan, this great big shellbark from Indiana, the shagbark from the North, and the thin shell nuts from Kentucky. Now hybridize these and I think, if you work at it long enough, you will get a tree that will have all those good qualities. The wonderful black walnut is a tree of hardiness, and the delicious Persian or English walnut is a nut of acceptable form. The pair offers splendid possibilities in their hybrid progeny. We have fruits thus far recognized as of little value which offer great possibilities as forage producers. The mulberry bears from June to September and the persimmon from September till March and the pig harvests them himself. We have the possibility of a brand-new agriculture, depending not upon grains, but upon tree crops, provided someone will breed the
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

grains

 

agriculture

 

walnut

 
hickory
 
possibilities
 

hundred

 
savage
 

Kentucky

 

September

 

plants


greatest
 

depend

 

qualities

 

fingers

 

pecans

 
provided
 

things

 

tables

 

shagbarks

 
depending

shellbark

 
hybrid
 

progeny

 

fruits

 

harvests

 

offers

 

splendid

 
forage
 

mulberry

 

persimmon


recognized

 

hybridize

 

producers

 

shagbark

 

possibility

 

English

 

acceptable

 

Persian

 

delicious

 

wonderful


hardiness

 

Indiana

 

grasses

 

inheritance

 

production

 

engines

 
producing
 

improve

 

selection

 

annual