pound) and lying so thick upon the ground that he thought he could pick fifty bushels in a day.[1]
ABILITY TO YIELD HEAVILY, AND ON POOR SOIL
The oak tree is productive in the quantity of fruit produced, and some species seem to display a well-nigh marvelous ability to produce heavily while still very small in size.[2] Sometimes
- ↑
"U. S. Department of Agriculture,
Bureau of Plant Industry,
Washington, D. C., August 6, 1914."A letter received from Mr. W. O. Wolcott, Bucaramanga, Colombia, says, 'By this mail I am mailing you one hundred acorns of a species of oak that grows in this state of Colombia. I traveled for two days on mule, coming from Ocana through these oaks all the way. You will notice these acorns are about four times the size of our acorns in the United States and as the trees are wonderful bearers these nuts should be of use as a stock and hog feed. The trees grow in the mountains at about four thousand to seven thousand feet altitude, and so close together that they grow to thirty to sixty feet high and not over four to six inches in diameter. Where the trees are in the open some of them are from ten to twenty inches in diameter. In many places the trees were not over two feet apart like the cedar swamps in Michigan when I was a boy. The natives fatten their hogs on the acorns. I could have gathered fifty bushels in a day, I should judge. . . .'
"Very sincerely yours,
"(Signed) David Fairchild,"Agricultural Explorer in charge."In a letter addressed direct to me Mr. Wolcott said, "A man told me that wherever there is a forest of these the natives never clear off the forest, as the land is so poor it won't grow anything, and now I remember that all through that section what few ranches I saw were awful miserable shanty ranches and yet all of them had fat hogs and goats. I believe goats can be fattened on these acorns the same as hogs.
"They tell me the acorns begin to fall in February. I gathered those sent on the second and third of June. Then there were piles of them in the very trail itself. They tell me they bear only once a year but every year."
- ↑ "Office of Experiment Stations, Honolulu, Hawaii, July 18, 1916.
". . . A small oak tree growing near Manhattan, Kansas, which is very peculiar, its small size being ordinarily less than two feet in height. I have taken specimens of an entire tree, shrub, or bush, which had acorns on it weighing in the aggregate more than the tree from which they came.
"John M. Westgate, Agronomist in charge.""Quercus primus pumila, chinquapin or dwarf chestnut oaks, one of the smallest of genus of two—four feet high. The acorns are of middle size and very sweet. Nature seems to have sought to compensate for the diminutive size of this shrub by the abundance of its fruit; the stem which is
