well founded; but swine, sheep and poultry eat what is given them. I
have an example of a farmer of Louisiana, who planted a hillside to
mulberry trees. The mulberries held the ground in place by their roots
and dropped their black harvest to the ground through three months of
summer, and the hogs gathered them up and converted them into pork worth
$12 an acre, without any effort on the part of the owner. The mulberry
area in the United States is probably close to a million square miles.
Over most of the region south of Mason and Dixon's Line the persimmon is
a hated tree weed; yet it stands by the millions in fields and fence
rows, fairly bending down with a full crop of fruit every other year,
which is much sought after by the opossum and other wild animals, and
eaten when possible by the American porker from September, the end of
the mulberry season, until March, for the persimmon has a habit of
dropping its fruit through the long winter period. The oak whose acorns
probably made the pig what he is, is almost neglected in America; yet
for ages the Indians of the Pacific coast have made their bread from
acorns of two species of oak, one of which is now gathered by the
farmers of California, put into their barns and bought and sold as
stock food. The beechnut and the hickory nut are rich and much prized
swine food.

Legumes, of which there are many species, can be grown between
nut-yielding trees to maintain the fertility of the soil through the
nitrogen gathering nodules upon their roots.

As it often seems desirable to cultivate trees of this character where
possible, the tree crops agriculturist is above all others able to
adjust his crop and the one device that permits the tillage of hilly
land--terracing. Terraces interfere with machinery which is so
increasingly essential in the cultivation and harvesting of the present