It is somewhat surprising that with all our nation's love of gain, and the general appreciative admiration of beautiful trees for shade and ornament, we have so few instances where nut-bearing trees have been adopted for planting in place of the maple, elm, or linden. The chestnut, butternut, black walnut, and Madeira nut, where the climate will admit, are all beautiful as shade ornamental trees ; can be transplanted while young without a loss of over ten per cent.; grow very rapidly, and come into bearing usually from the seventh to the tenth year from seed. The hickory or white walnut is more difficult of transplanting ; but even that we have removed with success by digging deep and obtaining, and again replanting entire, the tap root. This tap root retaining is, in fact, a feature of importance with all the nut-bearing trees, its loss often resulting in death of the tree, while, if fully retained, a tree rarely dies. It is, however, more certain, and probably most economical, to plant the nuts where trees are designed to stand.

This may be done and the ground yearly cropped to corn, potatoes, or small fruits, and at the end of five years or so it may be left in grass if desired. As a paying productive crop, as a permanent investment, attended with little or no labor in the cultivation or pruning, etc., we know of nothing more reliable than that of an orchard of nut-bearing trees. Our native forest trees are being rapidly destroyed, and without the attention of horticulturists to the subject of growing nut-bearing, as well as apple and pear trees, we shall soon find the products of our native land, in this particular, more rare than that of foreign shores. Already the chestnut commands a ready sale at from eight to twelve dollars a bushel, while the white walnut sells freely at from two to three dollars ; and yearly as time rolls on, these prices are enhanced rather than reduced, because of the increased demand and the lessened product by reason of cutting away the native forest trees. We write this having just come from an orchard of about sixty trees, now about twenty-five years old, and from which the owner last year gathered an average of over one and a half bushels to the tree, paying him a net return, exclusive of labor of gathering, of over six hundred dollars.

These trees stand in pasture land, and when the owner was clearing up the forest, were young saplings and left to grow, with a hopeful looking forward to the present result. In our earlier days we spent many a day gathering the white walnut, and our recollection is of six to eight bushels of fruit to a tree, for which buyers then paid one dollar a bushel; and as the trees were in pasture land, the product was a clear net gain, extremely acceptable to the owner.