56 



use of pecans. He had passed through Chicago a short time before 

 and a friend of mine, an officer of our association, happened to be a 

 friend of his, and gave him some pecans, and he hked them so well 

 that as he started from Chicago on the way to Washington he in- 

 dulged too freely, and by the time he got to Washington he had to 

 go to the hospital for repairs. Mr. Pierce wrote me a letter after 

 that and said that he didn't know why the Lord permitted trees to 

 grow such nuts until he created a new race of human beings with 

 gizzards in place of stomachs. That is because California men were 

 not used to eating good, rich nuts. We claim for the pecan that 

 it is about the best nut there is. We don't claim the earth but if you 

 people can develop or discover any nut that is better in quality and 

 more tasty and more alluring than the pecan, we shall be mighty glad 

 to have you discover it, and we hope it will be adaptable to the South. 

 You know the Buick automobile says, "When better cars are made, 

 Buick will make them." "When better nuts are made, we will make 

 them." We know that all pople can't have the best. We know that 

 some people have to eat cheaper steaks. The trouble with this coun- 

 try today is that everybody wishes the very best. The packers tell 

 us they have great trouble in disposing of the cheaper cuts of the 

 meat. I do not imagine that the nut growers are going to have much 

 trouble in disposing of the round steaks, but we are going to furnish 

 the best nuts. The market for cultivated pecans has developed in a 

 most marvelous way. There has never been any advertising, except 

 in a very small way, and yet the demand has always exceeded the 

 supply. It has grown just naturally. People learn of a good nut and 

 they spread the good news to their friends so that the demand in- 

 creases. Customers in New York but four or five years ago would 

 order eight or ten barrels of nuts; they are ordering 150 barrels now. 



I want to say to you, find a nut like that that you can grow in 

 New York State or that you can grow down in Connecticut, or in 

 any of this part of the world, and we will be mightly glad to see what 

 you can do, and we will try to steal it and grow it in the South. It 

 has been said that every great institution is only the shade of some 

 great man. If you can build up a great institution of a great com- 

 mercial nut here in the North let it be the shade of the Northern Nut 

 Growers' Association. 



I am not going to keep you longer because this rambling talk is 

 not prepared. I have been interested as I drove through New Eng- 

 land in seeing great groves along the public highways of maples and 

 elms, and I have thought how wonderful it would be if those were 

 all pecans or walnuts or almonds or some tree that would bear nuts 

 instead of furnishing shade. There is a world of opportunity in 

 this country for a commercial nut. They are used as delicacies now, 

 most of these nuts, but they are food, and they are food of the very 

 highest type. I expect to see the day when all our best hotels and res- 

 taurants will have on their menus nut steaks, almond and pecan 



