-14 YEARBOOK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Size small to medium, averaging about 85 to 90 nuts per pound; 

 form varying from long oval to oblong, with blunt apex; color bright, 

 reddish yellow, strongly splashed towardapex with purplish black; .shell 

 very thin and brittle, though quite dense in texture; partitions thin; 

 cracking quality very good; kernel plump, bright straw color, smooth 

 and broadly grooved, almost invariably well filled; texture delicate, 

 solid, fine grained; flavor very delicate; quality best. 



The tree is a short- jointed, rather slender grower, enormously pro- 

 ductive in the vicinity of its place of origin. It has not yet been fruited 

 elsewhere to any extent, but is considered one of the best high-grade 

 dessert varieties. On account of the thinness of shell, the nuts should 

 be packed in relatively small boxes when shipped to avoid cracking in 

 transit. Its small size is its only conspicuous fault. 



The specimens illustrated on Plate LVI were grown by Mr. E. E. 

 Risien, San Saba, Tex. 



STUART PECAN. 

 (SYNONYM: Castanera.) 



[PLATE LVIL] 



The original tree of this, which is generally considered the most 

 widely successful pecan variety yet introduced and tested, stood in a 

 garden at Pascagoula, Miss., now owned by Capt. E. Castanera. 



It is supposed to have grown from a nut brought from Mobile, 

 Ala., by John R. Lassabe and planted about 1874. a It early acquired 

 local celebrity on account of its productiveness and the beauty and fine 

 quality of its product, its average yield from 1889 to 1892 being about 

 140 pounds per annum. In 1892 it yielded about 350 pounds of nuts, 

 most of which were sold by Charles M. Cruzat, who then held the place 

 under lease, at $1 per pound. It was first propagated by Mr. A. G. 

 Delmas, of Scranton, Miss., who cut scions in 1886. Out of some sixty 

 grafts inserted he secured one tree, which still survives in his garden. 

 John Keller, then associated with Col. W. R. Stuart, of Ocean Springs, 

 Miss., in the pecan-nursery business, secured scions from the tree 

 about 1890, from which trees were propagated in nursery by them. 

 The trees of the variety were offered for sale by Colonel Stuart about 

 1892, under the name Stuart, which had been suggested for it by Prof. 

 H. E. Van Deman, then Pomologist of the Department of Agriculture, 

 who was unaware of the name previously applied to it in the locality 

 where it originated. Under the name Stuart it received wide adver- 

 tising and distribution, so that it is one of the most widely disseminated 

 varieties throughout the South. The original tree in Captain Casta- 

 nera's garden was blown down in October, 1893, by the same storm 



<* Letters from Charles M. Cruzat, 1903. 



