PECANS. 207 



Picudo, which yields enormous sized fruit, both first 

 quality for oil and pickles. 



Madrilenzo. Fruit large, excellent for pickling, walnut- 

 shaped ; yields but little oil. Prune tree cautiously. 



THE PECAN TREE. 



This is another of Florida's coming crops. Our people 

 are just beginning to realize, not that there is profit in this 

 popular nut, but that it can be raised here, on their own 

 grounds, to perfection. 



And why not ? It is native to Texas and Louisiana ; it 

 flourishes in every State as far north as Virginia, and even 

 (near the coast line) in Maryland, Delaware, and Southern 

 New Jersey, for it is the fact that in these States there are 

 pecan trees, large, beautiful, and bearing heavy annual 

 crops. 



There are several fallacies that have contributed to re- 

 tard the spread of pecan orchards. 



First and foremost is the idea held by so many, that to 

 plant a pecan tree is to plant only for the profit of one's 

 grandchildren ; probably this idea came from the knowl- 

 edge that, as a rule, nut-bearing trees are long in coming 

 into profit ; the hickory, and some others are fifty years or 

 more before they bear any crops worth speaking of, but 

 it is not so with the pecans. Planted on land of ordi- 

 nary fertility they usually begin bearing at six or seven 

 years old from the seed ; on rich land they are often a year 

 or two later in bearing, because they grow faster and make 

 such luxuriant foliage that they have no time to stop for 

 nut-making ; in either case the nuts are of the same qual- 

 ity, first class and thin-shelled. 



So much for the first fallacy ; now for the second, and 

 that is, that the nut must absolutely be planted where the 

 tree is to grow, because "if grown elsewhere and trans- 



