THE PECAN 



THE Pecan is generally acknowledged to be the most important native nut-bearing 

 tree in the United States. Throughout the region to which it is indigenous 

 the basin of the Mississippi as far north as Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, as well 

 as other Southern States the value of the nuts for food has long been recognized, and 

 during the last thirty years there has been a concerted attempt to improve the size and 

 quality of the nuts and to establish commercial Pecan orchards. In such attempts many 

 improved varieties have been introduced, and many methods of budding and grafting 

 have been tried. Of course, a good proportion of such varieties have proved of little value 

 for general culture, and many of the experiments in working over the trees have been 

 failures. But from it all there has been substantial progress, and the value of the tree has 

 been steadily gaining recognition. So marked is this improvement that the Southern 

 experiment stations are publishing bulletins treating of the culture of the tree in a practical 

 and scientific manner. 



The relationship of the Pecan to our familiar hickory-nut is easily inferred from 

 the pictures on the plate. The compound leaves with their slender, long-pointed decora- 

 tive leaflets are very similar to the leaves of some of the Hickories ; the long catkins of the 

 pollen-bearing blossoms are substantially like those of the Hickories ; and the nuts are 

 essentially slender, thin-walled hickory-nuts. The trees often attain a height of one hun- 

 dred and fifty feet and a trunk diameter of five or six feet. Such trees of course have been 

 long in growing and are likely to be found only in the soil of rich river lands, like the famous 

 region of the Wabash, where so many kinds of trees reach their largest size. The wood is 

 brittle and of little value as compared with that of most of the other hickories. It is good 

 for firewood, however. 



On the supposition that a large percentage of the improved sorts would reproduce 

 their type from seed, many thousands of seedlings were planted without budding or graft- 

 ing. Experience soon showed that the nuts on the seedlings were not of the parent type, 

 and the approved practice now is to bud or graft in the same way that varieties of apples 

 and other fruits are maintained. There has been also a general top- working of established 

 trees, a process in which success is difficult but well worth while, because many years oi 

 waiting are thus avoided. 



Among the more important named varieties of the Pecan are Century, Frotscher. 

 Pabst, Paragon, Sovereign, Stuart, and VanDeman. 



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