208 FLORIDA FRUITS OLIVES AND PECANS. 



planted, the tap-root will be cut or broken, and if it is 

 curtailed at all the tree may grow, but will never bear nuts." 



Now, there is just as much truth in this idea as there is 

 in the statement that the moon is made of green cheese. 

 The transplanted pecan will grow and bear fruit just as 

 any other tree will, even though its long tap-root is broken 

 in moving ; it is not the tap-root that bears the nuts, it is 

 merely the anchor that keeps the tree upright and helps 

 convey its water-supply. 



If it can be done conveniently, it is better to plant the 

 nuts three inches deep, good, fresh nuts and no others, 

 laid on their side, where the tree is to stand, because then 

 there is no check to the growth by transplanting, and 

 nearly a year is thus gained. 



But it is not necessary, and the great majority of pecan 

 orchards are set from nursery trees ; the nuts are started 

 in boxes of moist earth, and as soon as they sprout are 

 placed in the nursery rows. When high enough out of the 

 ground they should be heavily mulched. 



By the end of the first season they will be ten or twelve 

 inches high, and if the soil is loose and deep the tap-root 

 will be still longer than the top. And now they should 

 be set out where they are to remain, either in the or- 

 chard, thirty-five feet apart, about forty trees to the acre, 

 or here and there, wherever a handsome, highly ornamen- 

 tal shade tree is wanted, in avenues or in nooks around 

 the house. 



The pecan tree seems to be at home in all kinds of 

 soil, so that it be not desperately poor, and has a clay sub- 

 soil rocky, clay, or sand, dry or moist. And as to its 

 culture : for the first two or three years it should be well 

 mulched, and occasionally, if the soil is thin, be moderately 

 fertilized ; this is all the care it needs, for its deep-seated 

 rootlets render it independent of surface cultivation. 



