58 



406 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



1900 most such orchards were planted with seedling trees or with 

 nuts of particular varieties, which were placed at desired orchard dis- 

 tances and allowed to germinate and grow where the future trees were 

 to stand, thus avoiding the transplanting process. As the earlier 

 seedling orchards have come into bearing it has become increasingly 

 apparent -that the seedlings from trees of those exceptionally fine 

 varieties which the orchardist desires to perpetuate vary too greatly 

 from their parent types to be of much commercial value. Such seed- 

 lings rarely bear nuts closely similar to the parent in size, form, color, 

 thinness of shell, plumpness of kernel, or dessert quality, and still 

 more rarely do they reproduce the desired productiveness, ripening 

 time, or other important characteristics that determine the commercial 

 value of the. tree. The necessity of relying upon budded and grafted 

 pecan trees for commercial orchards is now very generally recognized 

 by intelligent planters, so that at the present time few seedlings are 

 being planted. 



Unfortunately, much confusion exists among growers as to the 

 exact identity and proper nomenclature of several of the leading sorts. 

 This is partially due to the fact that for many } r ears the locations of 

 the original trees were not known to the general public, and partially 

 to the fact that in certain instances deliberate renaming of varieties 

 previously introduced was practiced by certain nurserymen and dealers 

 in seeds and trees. The situation has been further complicated by a 

 somewhat general practice of selling seedling trees under the names of 

 the varieties from which they were grown. The result of these prac- 

 tices is that many and diverse forms of the pecan are now found in 

 orchards throughout the South under the names of some of the best- 

 known sorts. These practices are now discouraged by the leading 

 nurserymen and orchardists, arid it is hoped that, through the edu- 

 cational campaign which has been inaugurated by the National Nut 

 Growers' Association through the adoption of the code of nomenclature 

 of the American Pomological Society and its application to the names 

 of nut varieties in catalogues and other publications relating to the 

 subject, these productive causes of confusion in the names and identity 

 of varieties will soon cease to operate. 



With a view to determining the exact identity of the varieties that 

 have been longest introduced to cultivation, the ten sorts that have 

 been advertised and propagated for a sufficient time to attain a wide 

 distribution among planters are illustrated on Plates LVI and LVII. 

 The writer has visited the localities where these varieties originated, 

 and in the case of all except the Centennial (the original tree of 

 which was destroyed in 1890) has inspected and photographed the 

 original trees. The effort has been to illustrate nuts that fairly repre- 

 sent characteristic specimens of the varieties, including thickness of 



