5.00 "
Milk 9.50 "
Evaporated cream 4.00 "
But the great economic importance of the encouragement of nut culture in
every civilized land is best shown by comparing the amount of food which
may be annually produced by an acre of land planted to nut trees and the
same area devoted to the production of beef. I am credibly informed that
two acres of land and two years are required to produce a steer weighing
600 pounds. The product of one acre for one year would be one-fourth as
much, or 150 pounds of steer. The same land planted to walnut trees
would produce, if I am correctly informed, an average of at least 100
pounds per tree per annum for the first twenty years. Forty trees to the
acre would aggregate 4,000 pounds of nuts, or 1,000 pounds of walnut
meats. The highest food value which could be ascribed to the 150 pounds
of beef would be 150,000 calories or food units. The food value of the
nut meats would be 3,000,000 calories, or twenty times as much food from
the nut trees as from the fattened steer, and food of the same general
character, protein and fat, but of superior quality.
One acre of walnut trees will produce every year food equal to:
14,000 lbs. red bass (a ship load).
3,000 " beef (five steers).
7,500 " chicken broilers.
15,000 " lobsters.
10,000 " oysters.
60,000 eggs (5,000 dozen).
4,000 qts. milk.
A ton of mutton (13 sheep).
250,000 frogs.
And when one acre will do so much, think of the product
of a million acres.
Ten times the product of all the fisheries of the country.
Half as much as all the poultry of the country.
One seventh as much as all the beef produced.
More than twice the value of all the sheep.
Half as much as all the pork.
And many millions of acres may be thus utilized in nut culture.
And the walnut is not the only promising food tree. The hickory,
the pecan, the butternut, the filbert and the pinon are all
capable of producing equal or greater results.
A single acre of nut trees will produce protein enough to feed four
persons a year and fat enough for twice that number of average persons.
So 25,000,000 acres of nut trees would more than supply the whole people
of the United States with their two most expensive food stuffs. Cereals
and fresh vegetables, our cheapest foods, would be needed for the
carbohydrate portion of the dietary. Just th
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