Nut tree planting is not all waiting. It will give the busy man some surprises as I have reason to know from my own limited experience. Ten years ago when I planted my first experimental orchard I set about preparing several other lines of quick maturing experimental work, for I did not expect those trees would have any thing to report for a decade or so. You can imagine how surprised and delighted I was when on the third year there was a sprinkling of nuts, enough to be able to identify the most precocious varieties. The surprise increased to wonder the next year when there was an increased number of nuts on the trees that had borne last year and a number of new varieties came into bearing. In the eighth year when an 800-pound crop of nuts changed that experimental planting into a commercial pecan orchard, I was, to use a sporting phrase, "completely knocked out of the box." The man who thinks there are no thrills in tree planting has something yet to learn. It is the surest sign of a real true-blue horticulturist that he wants to set some kind of new tree or plant.
It is the rarest kind of a plantation that has on it no waste land. Fence rows, ditch banks and rough or stony places are to be found on practically every farm. Such spots too often lie waste or galled or at best are covered with weeds, briars, bushes or useless scrubby trees. These waste places would make a fine trial ground for testing out nut trees. A few fine walnuts, pecans or hickories, or rows of chinquapins and hazels would add profit as well as beauty to these waste and unsightly places found on most farms.
Following old conservative methods the average farmer sets about his house and buildings unproductive oaks, elms and maples, with scarcely a question of a thought that there are as handsome shade trees that will produce pleasure and profit as well. On our lawns and about our door yards we could plant to advantage the Japanese walnut and the hardier types of pecans and Persian walnuts. It would be of interest to try a few seedlings of these classes of nuts. If such practices were followed in the planting of nut trees it would not be long until new and valuable sorts would be found and a great deal of data made available to intending nut planters. I believe that a great deal of good would result from the preparation and dissemination of a circular encouraging farmers in nut planting.