Page:Tree Crops (1953).pdf/152

 Consul Lucien Memminger, Bordeaux, letter, September 23, 1927:

Per 100 kilos

Dry Chestnuts <a ais cov sveausesaawewans 230 francs Wheat isucssuarouaewacarecncey anne 155 francs Indian corns. (25 Ja6 Sessiees SSR 170 francs

I think it is accurate to say that in this district of systematic chestnut farming, which covers many square miles of gently rolling country, one-third of the area is in trees, ninety-nine percent of the trees are chestnut, and virtually all the chestnuts are grafted. It is the regular rule of the country that one-third of a man's farm is in chestnut for nut crop with a by-product of wood; one-third of the farm is in tilled fields; one-third is in pasture and hay meadows.

I have seen other French localities in which the fields were small and every fence row or boundary was bordered by a solid row of great chestnut trees, which thus covered a substantial percentage of the area.

The area of cultivated chestnuts seems to be declining in most of the French districts, especially Corsica. The following reasons are cited:

1. Such a large income is to be derived from sending the trees to tannin factories, a comparatively new industry.

2. The ravages of a disease called "maladie de l'encre" (Blepharospora cambivora).

3. A great increase in cost of gathering them, which now amounts to fifty percent of their value. This is due to the increasing scarcity of hired labor.

A chestnut grove of, say, four hundred trees (about twenty-five acres) costs as follows to harvest:

Labor for 45 days to clear away shrubs, etc.... 600 francs 40 loads of wood as fuel for drying........... 250 francs 200 days' labor, mostly women and children, for

harvesting chestnuts............0 0000s ees 2,000 francs