14 The Bulletin. 



flow lands during the growing season he will find that they are high 

 above water level and ideal for the growth of any crop. Indeed, these 

 same overflow lands will produce the finest corn and cotton and would 

 be under these crops year after year were it not that the river some- 

 times rises in its might and gathers in the crop while the planter looks 

 on in helplessness to see the results of his labors going down the bosom 

 of the turbid stream, not loaded in barges going to a profitable 

 market, but tangled in the swirling eddies and swept down to enrich 

 banks and bottoms nearer the Gulf. But the same raging overflow 

 that brings death and destruction to the annual crops caught in its 

 wake brings life and vigor to the pecan trees, for they have inured 

 themselves through generations of experience to resisting the surges 

 with their strong trunks and tough elastic branches, and then after 

 the flood has passed they feast and grow strong on the rich alluvium 

 it has brought to them. The pecan tree is fitted by nature to resist 

 the floods and high water, but it cannot resist the still, stagnant seep 

 of a marshy soil. One never sees the pecan tree growing and thriving 

 where the willow and gum hold their water-bound habitat. Many 

 people make the mistake of thinking that their sour, boggy land 

 which will grow no useful crop can be made into a profitable pecan 



orchard. 



PREPARING THE LAND FOR PLANTING PECANS. 



The pecan, like any other orchard tree, makes its best growth when 

 planted on thoroughly-prepared land. This has been well shown in 

 our different Test Farm orchards. Our most satisfactory and uniform 

 orchard is growing on the Test Farm in Edgecombe County, N". C, 

 because there the soil was uniform and in a high state of fertility 

 from leguminous crops before the trees were set. This soil is a rich 

 Norfolk sandy loam and is perfectly drained, except on one corner, 

 where there is a dip towards a creek. The pecan is commonly consid- 

 ered to be a water-loving tree, but it is strange to say that it was only 

 on this wet portion of the orchard that we lost any trees. Trees 

 planted a second time on this wet land failed. It was then very 

 evident that the wetness and sourness of the soil and subsoil was the 

 cause of the trees dying on this portion of the planting. The creek 

 was therefore cleaned and deepened and a line of tile put through the 

 wet part, and now pecan trees are living on this ground. 



The orchard on the Pender County Test Farm, 33 miles north of 

 Wilmington, X. C, was set on newly cleared land, and though indi- 

 vidual trees have made very handsome growths, the who^e orchard 

 is nothing like as uniform as the orchard on the well-tilled farm 

 land on the Edgecombe Test Farm. The Pender County land is 

 Portsmouth sandy loam. When the land was cleared on this farm 

 the pecan trees were set as the first crop, and peach trees were, as in 



