Page:Tree Crops; A Permanent Agriculture (1929).pdf/183

 Even more astonishing is the report of a Michigan man traveling in Colombia, South America, telling of solid forests of oak in the mountains of that country, yielding acorns four times as large as those in Michigan (forty of them weighed a

one tree on patented land at the Horse Ranch on the west slope in the fall of 1911. I know the tree. It is an emory oak with a trunk about twenty inches in diameter, and the top is sixty to seventy feet in diameter. She says that she has gathered acorns there several years and that the tree bears heavily when there are heavy snows in the winter preceding. There are very few acorns on it this year. The sacks mentioned above are the ordinary sacks that hold about sixty-five pounds of rolled barley."(Signed) Forest Ranger."

"Apache, Arizona, October 21, 1913."The emory oak bears nearly every year; in fact there have been some acorns every year since I have been in this part of the country. Last year (1912) I saw trees that I would judge bore at least four bushels of acorns."(Signed), Forest Ranger."

"Bonita Canyon, Arizona, Oct. 29, 1913."The quantity produced by one certain tree—the one standing in my yard, and under which my office tent is located—bears fruit nearly every year; a maximum crop it was considered to have had last year, 1912, would have amounted to at least one hundred pounds (100 lbs.). This year it produced not more than fifty pounds on account of the few very cold nights that froze many buds. The fruit is very sweet and relished by nearly all who have tasted it."(Signed), Forest Ranger."

"University of California, Berkeley, August 4, 1912."The valley oak, quercus lobata, yields, in the case of adult trees, about sixty to one hundred and twenty pounds of acorns per tree in the heavy acorn years. Every other year or every third year the yield is light or wanting.

"The California black oak trees yield about twenty to one hundred pounds per tree. It is a species much more abundant in individuals than the valley oak.

"The figures given above are simply estimates based upon my field experience."(Signed), Botanist."

"University of California, Berkeley, California, August 22, 1912."California black oak trees in the coast ranges near the coast will average two to three feet in trunk diameter and are fifty to seventy feet high. The diameter of their crowns would be forty to eighty feet. Where they are fairly abundant in a pure stand, the trees will run five to ten trees to the acre.

"A friend of mine thinks that two hundred or three hundred pounds might be a maximum yield of acorns."(Signed) "