Tree Crops A Permanent Agriculture 1953

493 Pages·1953·19.41 MB·English

MICROFICHE
REFERENCE
LIBRARY
I A project of Volunteers in Asia

.
t
Tree Crops.
A
Permanent
Aarlcuture

by: J. Russell
Smith

Published
by:
Devon-Adair
Company, Inc.
143 Sound Beach Avenue
Old Greenwich,
CT 06870
USA

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Inc.
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Park
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PA 18512
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A. Permanent Agriculture

By J. RUSSELL SMITH

“TREE CROPS” is one of the important books
of our time In its relation to ecology, national
economics arzl human welfare. It is a fascinat-
ing book for anyone interested In the basic
problem of the nation-its
real wealth and
natural resources. Also for many people it may
prove a very practical and profitable invest-
merit.-LOUIS
BROMFIELD

Tree Crops

A
PER
MANENT
.‘GRICULTURE

By the Same Author:

North America
Industrial
and Commercial G _ Ography
Men and Resources
Human Geography
Abundance, the Devil of the Machine Age
Commerce arzd Industry

FIG. 1. The U. S. Soil Conservation
Service reports
that the soil washed out and
blon~n uut of the fields of the I’nited
States exh year wot~ltl load a motler:l freight trait1
long enough to reach around the world eighteen times. If it ran twenty miles an hot11
continuously,
it would take it nearly three years to pass your station. \Vc lxgan
with
the richest of continents,
but . . .

A PERMANENT
AGRICULTURE

J. RUSSELL
SMITH,
Sc.D.

EMERXUS
PROFESSOR
OF ECONOMIC
GEOGRAPHY
Columbia
University

SOMETIME
PROFESSOR
OF
INDUSTRY
University
of Pennsylvania

A Friends
of the Land
Book

THE
DEVIN-ADAIR
COMPANY

New York
b 1953

Copyright
1950 by The Devin-Adair
Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form without permission in
writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer,
who may quote brief passages to be printed in a
magazine or newspaper. Manufactured
in the
United States of America.

An earlier edition of this book was published
by
Harcourt
Brace. The present edition
represents
a major revision from entirely
new plates.

2nd printing
March 1953

PRINTED
IX
THE
UNITYD
STATES
OF AMERICA

This book is dedicated to

CHARLES
C. HARRISON
EDGAR
F. SMITH
JOSIAH
H. PENNIMAN

THREE
PROVOSTS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF PENNSYLVANIA

WHOSE
SYMPATHETIC
UNDERSTANDING
AND
PRACTICAL

AID
WERE
OF
GREAT
ASSISTANCE
IN
THE
PROSECUTION

OF
THE
RESEARCHES
WHICH
RESULTED
IN
THIS
BOOK

14cknowledgmen ts

As I send this book to the press, I feel a great sense of gratitude
for the large amount of aid that I have received.
I wish to express my feelings of deep appreciation
to a group
of Philadelphians,
who, under the leadership of Mr. J. Levering
Jones, formed the University
of Pennsylvania
Tree Crops Ex-
ploration
Committee.
This committee
assisted in making pos-
sible some of the journeys
incident
to gathering
the facts that
have helped to make this book: Mr. and Mrs. J. Levering Jones,
Morris
L. Clothier,
Eckley B. Coxe, Jr., Cyrus H. K. Curtis,
George W. Elkins,
Charles C. Harrison,
Charles E. Ingersoll,
J. Bertram
Lippincott,
J. Franklin
McFadden,
Mr. and Mrs.
Louis C. Madeira, Joseph G. Rosengarten, William
Jay Turner,
John Weaver, J. William
White,
G. Searing Wilson,
Stuart
IVood, Dr. George Woodward,
Charlton
Yarnall.
Professor Howard H. Martin of the University
of Washington
spent many weeks searching for material.
17ah.rable letters have been sent to me by many private indi-
viduals;
also by agricultural
scientists in the employ
of the
United
States Department
of Agriculture,
the state universities,
the state experiment
stations, and foreign experiment
stations.
From among these many I must make especial mention of David
Fairchild,
H. P. Gould, C. A. Reed, Walter T. Swingle, William
A. Taylor,
and Raphael Zon, all of the United
States Depart-
ment of Agriculture.
Dr. .J. Eliot Coit has enlarged my knowl-
edge of the carob, and I am indebted
to Dr. H. H. Bennet and
many other members of the U. S. Soil Conserv5tion
Service for
valuable
data.
For the troublesome
job of reading chapters of another man’s

vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
vii

manuscript,
I am indebted
to Dr. W. C. Deming,
of Hartford,
Connecticut;
J. Ford Wilkinson,
of Rockport,
Indiana;
J. M.
Westgate,
Director,
Agricultural
Experiment
Sration,
Hono-
lulu;
Robert Forbes, Ex-Director,
Agricultural
Experiment
Sta-
tion, Tucson, Arizona;
H. J. Webber, Director,
Citrus Substa-
tion,
Riverside,
California;
and Dr. George A. Clement,
Los
Angeles Chamber of Commerce.
As a member of the Northern
Nut Growers’ Association,
I
have for many years been absorbing
information
from T. P.
Littlepage,
Dr. W. C. Deming, Dr. Robert T. Morris,
Willard
Bixby, E. A. Riehl, J. F. Jones, and many others.
More than a hundred members of this Association have given
me detailed reports of their experiments.
Their
reports are dis-
cussed in Chapter
25 of this book and appear in full
in the
Annual
report of the Northern
Nut Growers’ Association
for
1949 (J. C. McDaniel,
Secretary, Tennessee Department
of
AgricuJlture,
Nashville
3).
Mrs. Bessie W. Gahn, late of the U. S. Department
of Agri-
culture,
has assisted in botanical
research and also prepared
the manuscript
for the printer.
I am indebted
to Mr. John W. Hershey in a very especial
manner.
He had a lot of material
gathered for writing
a book
on nut growing
but the pressure of business and rather poor
health prevented his writing
the book. Instead he gave me free
access to his material-a
rare courtesy.
Miss Myra Light, my secretary, assisted in many skillful
ways.
Professor S. S. Visher of Indiana University
has read the galley
proofs, making many valuable suggestions.
I remember
with pleasure the warm and helpful
interest in
this, my avocation,
that has been shown by my departmental
colleagues, John E. Orchard, Louis A. Wolfanger,
and George
T. Renner.

Swarthmore,
Pa.
June I, 1950

J.
RUSSELL
SMITH

Foreword

HOW
TO
READ
THIS
BOOK

This book can be read in three ways-depending
on your hurry
or your interest.
First, look at the pictures ‘and the legends and you have the
essence of it.
Second, read the first three short chapters and you have the
idea. This might
be followed
by chapters 24 and 26 to get a
similar general statement of the applications.
Third,
if you are still interested, the table of contents or the
index will guide you into the main body of supporting
data.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7
8

9

10

11

12

‘3

‘4

15
16

17

18

Contents

HOW
LONG
CAN
WE LAST?

TREE
CROPS-THE
WAY
OUT

THE
PLAN-
AN
INSTITUTE
OF MOUNTAIN
AGRICULTURE

SOME
STOCK-FOOD
TREES---THE
PRODUCERS
OF
BRAN

SUBSTITUTES

A STOCK-FOOD
TREE,
THE
KEAWE,
OR HAWAIIAN

ALGAROBA

A STOCK-FOOD
AND
MAN-FOOD
TREE-THE
CAROB

A STOCK-FOOD
TREE-THE
HONEY
LOCUST

A GROUP
CF STOCK-FOOD
TREES-THE
MESQUITES

THE
REAL
SUGAR
TREE

A SUMMER
PASTURE
TREE
FOR
SWINE
AND
POULTRY-

THE
MULBERRY

THE
PERSIMMON:
A PASTURE
TREB
FOR THE
BEASTS
AND

A KINGLY
FRUIT
FOR MAN

A CORN
TREE-THE
CHESTNUT

A CORN
TREE-THE
OAK
AS A FORAGE
CROP

SOME
BREAD-AND-BUTTER
TREES-THE
ACORNS
AS

HUMAN
FOOD

NUTS
AS HUMAN
FOOD

A MEAT-AND-BUTTER
TREE
FOR
MAN-THE
PERSIAN

WALNUT

ANOTHER
MEAT-AND-BUTTER
TREE-THE
EASTERN
BLACK

WALNUT

A GROUP
OF MEAT-AND-BUTTER
TREES---THE
OTHER

WALNUTS

ix

3
8

21

33

36
46

65
80

95

97

110

127

156

‘87

202

206

226

236

CONTENTS
X

‘9

20

21

22

23

24

25
26

THE
PECAN-KING
OF HICKORIES-A
TYPE
STUDY
IN

TREE
CROPS

MORE
hLE.4T--kND-BUTTER
TREES-THE
OTHER
HICKORiES

SOME
SUGGESTED
LINES
OF WORK-THE
UNEXPLORED

REALM
0

A PEEP
AT
THE
TROPICS

TREE
CROPS
AND
FARM
MANAGEMENT

PLAN
OR PERISH-TREE
CROPS-THE
NATION
AND
THE

RACE-A
NEW
PATRIOTISM
IS NEEDED’

WHO
IS WORKING
NOW?

THE
GREAT
HOPE
AND
THE
MANY
LITTLE
HOPES

APPENDICES

INDEX

241
268

278

298

315

349

361

382

39’
395

PART
ONE

The Philosophy

CHAPTER
I

How Long Can We Last?

I stood on the Great Wall of China high on a hill near the bor-
ders of Mongolia.
Below me in the valley, standing up square
and high, was a wall that had once surrounded
a city. Of the
city, only a few mud houses remained,
scarcely enough to lead
one’s mind back to the time when people and household indus-
try teemed within
the protecting
wall.
The slope below the Great Wall was cut with gullies, some
of whi&
were fifty feet deep. As far as the eye could see were
gullies, gullies, gullies-a
gashed and gutted countryside.
The
little
stream that once ran past the city was now a wide waste
of coarse sand and gravel which the hillside gullies were bring-
ing down faster than the little
stream had been able to carry
them away. Hence, the whole valley, once good farm land, had
become a desert of sand and gravel, alternately
wet and dry,
always fruitless.
It was even more worthless than the hills. Its
sole harvest now is dust, picked up by the bitter winds of winter
that rip across its dry surface in this land of rainy summers and
dry winters.
Beside me was a tree, one lone tree. That
tree was locally
famous because it was the only tree anywhere in that vicinity;
yet its presence proved that once there had been a forest over
most of that land-now
treeless and waste.
The farmers of a past generation
had cleared the forest. They
had plowed the sloping land and dotted it with hamlets. Many
workers had been busy with flocks and teams, going to and fro

3