PROFIT IN NUTS 21 



the increase will be still more rapid in the coming 

 decade. 



Peculiar interest attaches to the pecan because 

 it is the one nut indigenous to the United States 

 among those that at present have actual com- 

 mercial importance. The pecan, indeed, must 

 be looked to as now holding the position in the 

 southern portions of the United States that the 

 chestnut should occupy in the northern that of 

 premier nut. In recent years its merits have 

 begun to receive wide attention, as the figures 

 just quoted show, and the cultivation of pecan 

 nuts for the market is likely to become a very 

 important industry. Already there are numer- 

 ous named varieties on the market, each having 

 its champions. 



These varieties have peculiar interest because 

 of the fact that each one of them represents not 

 an artificially developed product, as in the case 

 of most varieties of fruits and grains, but merely 

 the progeny of an individual tree. 



It appears that here and there, particularly in 

 the State of Mississippi, there has grown a pecan 

 tree of unknown antecedents that became locally 

 famous for the large size and unusual quality of 

 its fruit. 



These trees, it will be understood, are all of 

 one species, and the nuts are obviously all of one 



