The Bulletin. 23 



tbcy are not overtopped and choked out by the rank growth <»f weeds 

 and underbrush. It is not even necessary to clear all the land right 

 at the start, but strips can be cleared for the tree rows and the middles 

 shrubbed out later. If the shrubbing is done in the fall of the year 

 a great deal of rank growth can be killed out very cheaply. Most of 

 the woody growths on overflow lands are killed and rotted out if the 

 sprouts are kept down. All large, long-lasting stumps should be 

 blown out with dynamite before the pecan trees get large. In this 

 way rough overflow land can be cleared and gotten into shajDe while 

 the little pecan trees are growing on the land. 



CUT-OVER LANDS FOR PECANS. 



There is a good deal of call for information as to how to handle 

 cut-over timber lands in order to get them into profitable pecan 

 orchards. The method employed will depend a good deal on the 

 nature of the land, but in nearly all cases this will amount to a total 

 or partial clearing of the ground before tree planting can profitably 

 beain. Most of the cut-over lands are sour — so sour that they will 

 not successfully grow farm crops for a year or two, and, as has been 

 said, if farm crops cannot be grown it is throwing away money 

 to try to grow pecan trees. The only thing to do is to clear up, lime, 

 and break the land and sow it in corn or cowpeas or both. These are 

 good crops for taming land. As soon as they can be grown success- 

 fully the pecan trees can safely be planted. Where land is sometimes 

 reasonably free from trees, strips can be broken up and prepared as 

 described before and the tree rows set before the whole land is plowed 

 and brought into cultivation. The middles can be cleared later, thus 

 saving or rather delaying the expense of clearing the whole land at 

 once. However, where practicable it is better to break up the 

 whole land, using the middles for suitable cover crops. In this way 

 the land-taming process is hastened and the growth of the trees 



accelerated. 



OLD VERSUS NEW LAND. 



I would say to intending pecan planters, if it ever comes to a 

 choice of location between poor, worn-out farm land and cut-over 

 timber land, make every concession to the land that has been mellowed 

 by the ploughshare before assuming the problems of an untamed heath. 

 From the nature of our climate there is little or no virgin fertility in 

 new land, and I have found from experience that it is always a 

 severe strain on one's religion to clear land of fat-lightwood stumps. 

 The fertility in our southern soils is not found there naturally, but is 

 acquired from the fertilizer sack and the cowpea plant. On the 

 other hand, our soils never wear out, but are as indestructible as the 



