145 



PROMISING XEW FRUITS. 487 



DESCRIPTION. 



Form long, ovate conical, with a bluntly pointed base and sharp, 

 prominent apex, sometimes sharply curved; size medium, 60 to 65 

 nuts per pound; surface smooth; color brigh't golden brown, with a 

 few irregular purplish stripes toward apex; shell medium in thick- 

 ness, rather hard, but with thin and brittle partitions; cracking 

 quality good ; kernel very plump, thick, with rather narrow but shal- 

 low grooves ; texture moderately fine and solid ; flavor sw r eet ; quality 

 good. 



The tree is rather round topped, low headed, symmetrical, and 

 spreading. The young wood is of medium caliber, dull gray, with 

 short, acute buds, and numerous long, narrow, light gray dots. Like 

 the Curtis it is leafy, with the fruit spurs well distributed through 

 the tree. The nuts are borne in clusters of two to four each, and 

 ripen in Alachua County, Fla.. October 15 to 20. The variety is 

 recommended for middle and northern Florida, and it is worthy of 

 testing wherever the Curtis succeeds. 



The specimens illustrated on Plate XLIX were grown by Dr. J. B. 

 Curtis, Orange Heights, Fla. 



HODGE PECAN. 



While the northern limit of natural distribution of the pecan is 

 in the vicinity of Davenport, Iowa, in the Valley of the Mississippi 

 Kiver, and of Terre Haute, Ind., in the Wabash Valley, very few of 

 the wild pecan trees now surviving north of the Ohio River yield 

 nuts of sufficiently large size, thin shell, and plump kernel to justify 

 their perpetuation by budding or grafting. The inability of most, 

 if not all, of the far southern varieties to endure the low winter 

 temperatures that occasionally occur in the northern portions of 

 the pecan region renders them of little prospective value to northern 

 growers. There is much interest, therefore, in the search for desir- 

 able varieties likely to prove hardy in the Middle Western and 

 Middle Atlantic States. 



One of the most promising sorts of this character thus far brought 

 to notice is the Hodge, the original tree of which is owned by Mr. H. 

 G. Hodge, of York, Clark County, 111. He reports it to be a wild 

 tree, about 10 inches in diameter and 40 feet high in 1908, a and as 

 yielding about 1 bushel of nuts in that season. He has had the 

 tree under observation for several years, having sent specimens of 

 the nuts from it to the Department in various seasons since 1893. 

 He has disseminated it in the form of nuts for planting under the 

 names " Hodge's Favorite " and " Illinois Mammoth," neither of 

 which, however, appears to have been published. 



a Letters from H. G.. Hodge, November 18 and 25, 1908. 



