Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1882 — Wealth in Walnut Trees. [ARTICLE]

Wealth in Walnut Trees.

Jacksonville, 111., April 3.—Mr. C- B. Wilson drove me out to his farm today to see some black walnut trees. “These trees,” he said, “were planted from the seed twenty years ago. I saw them planted.” I measured these trees and they were sixteen inches through. They would saw into timber a foot square. They would cut 300 feet of clear black walnut boat ds and then have the tops, limbs, and stump left. The stump itself would sell today for $5 to be sawed into veneers. The board |would be worth S3O. “What could you sell those trees for to timber men as they stand?” I asked. “I could sell them for $25 per tree, and then year from now they will be worth $50.” From these facts I came to the conclusion : A black walnut tree will pay $1.25 per year for the first twenty years. A thousand of them will pay $1,200 per year. Now, every Illinois farmer has it in his power to make more money off of a row of black walnut trees around his farm, than he can make on his farm if sowed to wheat. How can he doit? This way: A farm of 160 acres would be 10,560 feet in circumference. Now plant walnut trees four feetapart all around it and you will have 2,760 trees; which vill be worth $26 apiece in twenty yeais. Again, a farmer can set all of his sloughs, low places, and all hog pastures into blaci walnuts. Two thousand handsome walnut trees growing on a farm would be worth $50,000 in twenty years, and would not interfere with the farm at all. Orange raising in Florida will not pay half so well as bleck walnut raising in Illinois. \ “How should black walnuts be

planted?" I asked Mr. Bates, a nurseryman at Whitehall, 111. “The easiest way,” he said, “is to strike the ground With a common hammer in the fall, make a round hole two inches deep and drop the walnut in. It will cover itself with leaves and dust. The debris over the kernel will be so light that the sprout will be no trouble in finding its way out” “What would you do after they come up in the spring?” I’d go around and put a shovelfhll of saw dust, tan-bark, grain-chaff, or straw around each sprout. This will keep the roots damp and kill the grass or weeds around the roots. A boy could plant a thousand trees in a day in this manner. I'd plant them twice as thick as I needed them, and then thin them out.”—[Chicago Tribune. /

ELI PERKINS.