By Hon. Royal S. Copeland, U. S. Senator from N. Y.

Whenever there is a peculiar individual in the community, he is apt to be called a "nut." As ordinarily used this is a term of derision, but the more one studies the value of the nut the more he is impressed with the idea that this isn't a good word to apply to an abnormal individual, unless he happens to be abnormally good. The nut is one of the best of the products of nature. It is one of the oldest of foods, and among certain animals it is almost the only food depended upon for health and growth.

If Mr. Bryan is mistaken about the origin of man, and if his antagonists are right, the natural ancestors of the human race were all nut eaters. At least the gorillas and chimpanzees are fond of the nut. When we go back to the early history of the Greeks and the early inhabitants of Great Britain, we find that they depended largely upon the acorn for food.

When measured by the caloric method it is surprising how much richer in nourishment the nut is than almost every other food substance. Nuts average about ten times as many calories per pound as the richest vegetables.

It makes you hungry to hear the names of the nuts. In this country we have the walnut, butternut, hazel nut and the hickory nut, the chestnut and the beechnut. These are native to our land. Then there are cultivated orchards of Persian walnuts, pecans, almonds and peanuts.

Christmas and Thanksgiving would be a failure without nuts; they are a part of the hospitable fare and no stocking is well filled at Christmas time unless a handful of nuts is added to the surprises.

Isn't it amazing what popular ideas there are in existence about the digestibility of foods. Many of these are fallacious. For instance, it is common belief that nuts are difficult to digest. This is not well founded. Of course nuts like all foods which are used as a part of the dessert are considered merely as an addition to the meal, and not a part of the meal structure. You finish your meal, having eaten everything you need and having filled your stomach, then you are given a dish of ice cream and, perhaps, after that the nuts are passed. They taste so good that you are tempted to take one more about ten times. You fail to chew the nut thoroughly and you crowd it into an already overfilled stomach. Because it happens to be the first thing to come up in case of disaster you jump at the illogical conclusion that your indigestion is due to the nuts. I need not tell you how unscientific is your conviction.

Several varieties of nuts are used for the making of nut butter, and this food is a very excellent substitute for meat.

Certainly nuts have material advantage over a good many foods. They keep indefinitely. They never putrefy. They are not infested with harmful bacteria. You can never get tape-worm or any other parasitic trouble, which occasionally follows the eating of infected food.

I am glad there are societies organized to propagate the nut. A prominent concern of New York City is very active in promulgating the value of the nut, and is encouraging the planting of nut trees.

Somebody has estimated that there are three million miles of country roads, and that if nut trees were planted alongside these roads there would be enough protein food for the entire population.

Nuts are rich in protein, lime, iron and vitamins.

Many dishes may be made from the nut which have the appearance and flavoring of meat, without the objectionable effects of flesh diet.

Last year we imported twenty-five million pounds of almonds, forty million pounds of Brazil nuts, eighteen million pounds of filberts, and forty-four million pounds of walnuts,—about twenty million dollars worth of these nuts were brought into the country.

This shows that there is some appreciation certainly of an article of food which deserves to be even more commonly used than it is at present.