32 



The Bulletin. 



(1911) tliey amount to fourteen and a half millions of dollars. In 

 the face of these figures it does not look much like a threatened 

 overproduction of pecans for a very long time to come. Furthermore, 

 in addition to the increasing use of pecans for confectionary, culi- 

 nary, and dessert purposes, there is an increasing demand for pecan 

 oil, for the pecan is the richest in oil of all vegetable substances. As 

 the pecan is not grown anywhere else in the world except in the 

 United States, the world must get its supply of nuts from us. A nut 

 so fine for dessert and confectionary purposes as the pecan will 

 undoubtedly make a great demand for itself when there are enough 

 of them produced to satisfy our home needs and the world outside 

 learns how delicious they are. There is little reason, therefore, to 

 fear that the pecan industry will be overdone, because it will take 

 many a year even at the present rapid rate of planting to as much 

 as satisfy present demands for these nuts. 



A LAST WORD ON PLANTING NUTS AND SEEDLING TREES. 



]Sro one who is conversant with recent horticultural progress would 

 think of planting nuts or seedling trees to get a pecan orchard. He 

 would send to a nursery where he could get budded trees of the varie- 

 ties suited to his locality. Twenty years ago this was not possible, 

 for then there were no budded trees, and the only way to get a 



(a) (b) (c) 



Fk;. 15. At (a) is shown a pecan nut and at (c) a bitter nut. At (b) is shown 



the resulting hybrid. 



pecan orchard was by planting nuts or seedling trees. All the older 

 orchards throughout the countrj' were produced in this way. As every 

 seedling tree is a distinct variety, there is of course little or no uni- 

 formity in the nuts. On account of the tendency of trees to revert 

 or "breed back" to original ancestors, most of the nuts are small and 

 thick-shelled, even though large, thin-shelled nuts were planted. A 

 more discouraging feature even than this is found in the fact that 

 manv times the nuts from seedling trees are bitter, and therefore of 

 no value wliatever. The bitterness of many seedling pecans is 



