98 



to 1000 acres are procured its cost may be around $100,000.00^ or 

 more, according to location. The cost might run $25,000.00 a year, or 

 more, and the work would have to be kept up for a number of years. 



From the above it will be seen that it is going to take land, money 

 and time, ten to twelve years, to get the trees into condition before 

 much of any work can be done, and ten more or so before one can 

 know with certainty as to the result. With certain species, hazels and 

 chestnuts for example, quicker results' can be expected, for these have 

 been known to bear within two or three years from planting the seed. 

 Japan walnuts are also precocious, frequently bearing within 3 or J' 

 years from seed. Black walnuts have been known to bear within 6 

 years from seed, so that something will be learned as we go along, 

 but nevertheless one must figure on about 10 years before the trees 

 will be in condition to make hybrids and 10 more before we know what 

 we have really done. This, from one standpoint, is not an inviting 

 proposition, but that depends wholly on what we may expect to ac- 

 complish, and that we will consider now. 



Figure 1, opposite page 96 shows four nuts, one the McCallister 

 hybrid, to the left of it a northern pecan, the Indiana, one of the best 

 of our northern pecans, to the right a shellbark hickory from a well 

 known grove in Sigurney, Iowa, which the owner considers one of his 

 best trees, and a common sized northern pecan. The McCallister is 

 a hybrid between the pecan and the shellbark. While the particular 

 pecan and the particular shellbark which are its parents are not 

 known, there is no reason to believe they bore an}' better nuts than 

 the average nuts borne by these species in the vicinity of Mount 

 Vernon, Indiana, where the McCallister loriginated, and there is 

 every reason to believe they were much inferior to the Indiana pecan 

 and the shellbark shown. A tree is known which grew from planting 

 a McCallister nut, and it bears a small round pecan. I have never 

 seen it, but from the description of it would not think it to be much 

 larger than the fourth nut shown. As noted above there is no reason 

 to expect the parents of the McCallister to have been better than the 

 ordinary pecans or shellbarks of southern Indiana, and yet in size at 

 least we have something remarkable in the McCallister. Size is the 

 only quality we can visualize, but as we can in hybrids combine any 



