238 3Iississippi Valley Horticultural Society. 



In the State of Mississippi it is confined to the lands of the Yazoo and Mis- 

 sissippi delta. Beyond the limits of the United States the tree extends into 

 Northeastern Mexico. Prof. Buckley found it seventy-five miles west of the 

 Rio Grande, at Lampasas Springs, in Mexico. 



East of the Mississippi bottom the pecan tree is not found in the Southern 

 States. As indicated by the measurements recorded by Prof. Ridgeway, in 

 his account of the lower Wabash region, it appears to arrive there at its best 

 development. There it takes the first place amongst the largest of timber 

 trees. Several individuals standing within sight, were, by actual measure- 

 ment, found one hundred and seventy-five feet in height by a circumference 

 of fifteen feet, the trunk clear of limbs to a length of seventy-five feet. Far- 

 ther south, in the forests of the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, it does not 

 attain such dimensions; trees exceeding three feet in diameter were scarcely 

 observed. Beyond the Brazos river, in Texas, in the dry atmosphere of the 

 West, it is of lower, more sturdy growth. Its massive trunk, with an aver- 

 age diameter of three feet, spreads horizontally its mighty limbs at a distance 

 from fifteen to twenty feet above the ground, and covering by its shade an 

 area from eighty to one hundred feet in diameter. In regard to the quality 

 of its fruit, it reaches, in the South, to far greater perfection than through- 

 out the Northern range, and consequently the Southern nuts are more 

 highly valued. 



The nut of Western Texas is of a fine quality, and the crop of the native 

 pecan groves grows, with every year, more in import^mce as one of the valu- 

 able productions of the soil. It can be considered as almost never-failing. 

 The ease with which it is gathered, handled and disposed of, its resistance to 

 external influences and to decay, render it the most remunerative of all the 

 fruit crops of that country. Keeping its richness and sweetness for a longer 

 time unimpaired than any other of the oleaginous seeds, the pecan nut is 

 valued as one of the most desirable among all the dessert nuts. 



Full cause for regret have those who, in their hasty greed for gain, sacri-' 

 ficed, at the beginning of their settlements, their pecan groves to King Cot- 

 ton. They find themselves deprived of a constantly increasing source of in- 

 come, which requires no expense of time and means, and their posterity of 

 an inheritance to have benefited coming generations. The traffic in pecan 

 nuts forms quite an interesting item in the trade of Western Texas. In the 

 cities of Austin and San Antonio, during the fall, wagon-load after wagon- 

 load, hauled for hundreds of miles, can be seen to arrive. On my inquiries 

 among the principal merchants in San Antonio, the most important center 

 of that trade, I found that, in the season of 1880, 1,250,000 pounds were re 

 ceived at that place alone. The price paid by the wagon-load varied from 

 five to six cents per pound. 



To the cultivation of this tree has, so far, scarcely any attention been paid 

 in Texas. In Louisiana, throughout the so-called Mississippi coast, the Ope- 

 lousas and Atchafalaya region and that of the Bayou Teche, it succeeds ex- 

 ceedingly well and produces fruit unsurpassed in quality. The early French 



