92 



The locating of a parent tree is often no small or easy task. It is 

 easy to hear of a good pecan tree in every neighborhood. But often 

 after a tiresome walk through woods, weeds, and vines, crossing creeks 

 and marshes, one arrives at the tree only to find the nut to be of 

 medium quality. Such disappointments come to one a score of times 

 for every really worthy tree he finds. 



Mr. Littlepage, R. L. McCoy, Paul White and myself, have trav- 

 eled thousands of miles at no little effort and expense, in some kind 

 of a vehicle, motor boat, row boat ar on foot, in locating the now 

 named varieties and cutting bud and graftwood from them, and at all 

 times looking for something better. 



Trees of these varieties have gone from my nursery to every state 

 in the northern pecan tree territory, to Canada and foreign countries, 

 but I am sorry to say that few people in this neighborhood have taken 

 any interest in planting them; what have been planted here are mostly 

 just a few trees as a trial planting. There might just as well have been 

 a number of bearing orchards here had the people listened to the good 

 advice given by that great and good nut authority, the late E. A. 

 Rielil, when in the meeting in Enterprise, Indiana, in August, 191 i, he 

 said, "It is time here for you people to wake up. You don't know 

 what you have got. You are like people in many other sections of the 

 country, they don't appreciate what the}^ have got at their very door- 

 ways. If I were a young man, I would come here and plant pecan and 

 walnut trees, but I am too old now to make such changes. In a few 

 years you may remember what I have said. The walnuts are as profit- 

 able as anything else, and much more so than any farm crop you can 

 grow. Nothing will produce as much value as nut crops, I am con- 

 vinced of that." 



This good advice might be applied to many sections of the country 

 by growing the kind of nut trees best suited to its location. At the 

 same time, Professor J. Russell Smith said, "Gentlemen, I do not see 

 how anyone can live by these trees here and not realize they are 

 a source of fortune. I can't understand how men can look up at them 

 every year, gather and sell the nuts, and not realize they are a source of 

 livelihood. They are all bending down with their fruit. It is marve- 

 lous, and they are certainly giving us evidence that the thing for us 

 to do is to go ahead and reproduce them." 



Col. Van Duzee said in part, "As Dr. Smith says, these people 



