The nut trees demand too much room for most home-ground fruit plantations, although they are also useful for windbreaks and shade. The hickories, all American, make excellent lawn trees, and should be better known. The filberts and cobnuts, small trees or bushes, are not successfully grown in this country except in very special cases.

The commercial nut-growing in the United States and Canada is chiefly of almonds (p. 415), walnuts, and pecans, with some attempt at chestnuts. Of these the chestnut is the most adaptable for home places in the northeastern section.

Of chestnuts there are three types in cultivation: the European, the Japanese, and the American. The American, or native chestnuts, of which there are several improved varieties, are the hardiest and most reliable, and the nuts are the sweetest, but they are also the smallest. The Japanese varieties are usually injured by the winter in central New York. The European varieties are somewhat hardier, and some of the varieties will thrive in the northern states. Chestnuts are very easily grown, although the bark disease (p. 208) now threatens them. They usually bear better when two or more trees are planted near each other. Sprouts in old chestnut clearings are often allowed to remain, and sometimes they are grafted to the improved varieties. The young trees may be grafted in the spring by the whip-graft or cleft-graft method; but the cions should be perfectly dormant, and the operation should be very carefully done. Even with the best workmanship, a considerable percentage of the grafts are likely to fail or to break off after two or three years. The most popular single variety of chestnut is the Paragon, which bears large and excellent nuts when the tree is very young.

When the home ground is large enough, two or three of these trees should be planted near the borders.