A TREATISE ON NUT CULTURE. 93 



P EGA N . (Hicoria Pecan Carya Oliveformis. ) 



The Pecan is by far the most valu- 

 able of the Hickory family and is in- 

 digenous to the Mississippi Valley as 

 far North as Iowa, and Southern Cen- 

 tral United States; rarely found along 

 the Atlantic Coast, but luxuriating in 

 a congenial climate along the alluvial 

 fiver bottoms of Texas and Louisiana, 

 though it will adapt itself to almost 

 any locality if given good rich soil, on which it makes rapid growth and 

 attains great size, four to six feet in diameter, with fifty to seventy-five feet 

 spread of branches, and seventy-five to one hundred feet in height, towering 

 above the surrounding tree tops. 



The largest nuts, with thinnest shells, are found in Mississippi, Louisiana 

 and Texas, where they grow in abundance in strips of woodland bordering 

 the streams and moist fends. It does not object to an occasional overflow if 

 not too long inundated. 



Wherever the Hickory will grow it will be safe to plant the Pecan, though 

 the best nuts are produced in the long summers of the warmer climates. The 

 Rural New Yorker says: "No State has the monopoly of Pecan Culture. 

 It will pay in forty-three other States as well as Texas. ' ' 



Orchard Plant- There ^ as been a great diversity of opinion in regard 



jujy to the best mode of starting a Pecan grove. Some 



still claim that the proper plan is to plant the nut 



where the tree is to grow and remain, so as not to disturb the tap root, while 

 most of those of large experience now assert it is best to plant the seed in 

 the seed bed, then transfer to nursery row, as previously described, and at 

 one year root prune, which will produce the lateral rootlets and after trans- 

 planted will the more quickly come to bearing. 



Probably the largest planted orchard of Pecans is that of F. A. Swinden, 

 Brownwood, Texas, who has eleven thousand trees planted on four hundred 

 acres. These were large selected soft shell nuts, planted forty feet apart each 

 way, where the tree was to remain. Of this four hundred acres, one hundred 

 acres are eight years old; one hundred acres six to seven years old; one hun- 

 dred acres four to five years old, and one hundred acres two to three years old. 

 The first planting is beginning to produce nuts. Mr. Swinden has grown cotton, 

 corn and vegetables among the trees. And not only have these cultivated 

 crops been a source of profit, but the trees in the meantime have made good 

 growth . 



