Northern Nut Growers Association Annual Report 1915 | Page 8

would be very advantageous to them to favor nut-growing trees and to plant them where they are not now growing, both because of the value of the nuts which they produce and of the value of their wood.
If the people of a great state like New York are more or less ignorant of the extent and value of their forest holdings, how much more ignorant are they of the character and the value of a particular species which make up their forest lands. How few people are able to go into the forest and say that this tree is a shagbark hickory or that that is a butternut or that that is a red pine, and if this is the case, as you will agree with me that it is, is it not time that propagandist or general educational work be done that will bring forcibly to the attention of the wage-earners of the state that it is a financial necessity for the state to consider better use of its forest lands, so that all of the soils of New York may share in the burden of the support of the commonwealth rather than a few of the soils which are now being given up to agricultural use? The wage-earner should know also that nuts used as food are conducive to health and that possibly a more extensive use of nuts with less of meat will mean a considerable difference over a period of a year in the amount that is saved in the living expenses of an individual or a family.
It is often difficult for the forester to interest the average farmer in the planting of trees, even though those trees may add to the beauty and value of the farm or the comfort of the home buildings, but your organization will make a place for itself most decidedly if it will go to the farmer or to a group of farmers and show them that they can actually save money in the purchase of their needed lumber and wood of other kinds if they will cut their woodlots co-operatively and produce in the woodlots trees of greatest possible value and trees which will give such by-products as nuts as well as direct returns from the lumber. Just as soon as you can reach the pocket-book of the average wage-earner, it makes little difference whether it is nuts or books or clothing, they are going to be interested in a thing that will allow them to get more for the amount which they make from their day's labor.
_The Association May Accomplish Much by Demonstrating the Value of Nut Trees as Trees and the Value of Their Products as Food_
Many organizations in our Eastern States are becoming interested in the beautification of communities and the tremendous development in the use of the automobile is interesting even more organizations in the beautification of rural highways. It would not be a difficult thing for the Nut Growers Association to interest civic associations or women's clubs in the planting not only of forest trees alone along rural highways but a certain number of nut trees. We are literally in the age of the "Movie" and if a man who walks or drives along our highways can see as he passes the growing nut trees and the bountiful harvest which they may be made to yield, he is being convinced that not only elm and maple are of value along our highways, but that the nut-producing trees may give equal satisfaction in beauty of form and comfort of shade and at the same time yield fruit of very definite value.
Even though the fruit of the nut-bearing trees of our woodlands and highways may not give an annual return to the town or village or county it will bring immeasurable joy and possibly better health to the boys and girls of the future. In many ways the children of this country are educating their parents and it is not an impossible idea to think of the parents of the future being converted by the influence of their children to the desirability if not the necessity of growing trees and nut trees, the fruit of which will give pleasant healthfulness and at the same time aid in the saving of the daily wage and in the support of the commonwealth. I wish to emphasize this idea of considering not alone the financial return from the trees and the forests of this state. As the son of a lumberman and as a forester I am, of course, most vitally interested in the growing of trees as a business proposition, but I feel that such an organization as yours, especially, should look at this matter not alone from actual financial returns, but because of indirect benefits such as