;;:i AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



Nurserymen were not slow to recognize the value of the pecan tree 

 for planting purposes, and nursery grown stock has been on the market 

 many years. Extensive orchards have been planted in Texas, Louisiana, 

 Florida, and other southern states, and some of the earliest of these 

 orchards are now in bearing. However, by far the largest part of pecans 

 on the market is wild fruit from the forests. Many are shipped in from 

 Mexico, but most grow in the rich woods of southern states. They are 

 gathered like chestnuts in northern woods. The people who pick them 

 sell to local stores at low prices, often taking pay in merchandise. 

 Buyers collect the stock from country and village merchants, and put it 

 on the general market, often at three or four times the price paid to the 

 gatherers of the nuts. 



One of the most important matters connected with pecan is the 

 large number of horticultural varieties which have been produced by 

 cultivation and selection. More than seventy have been listed in nur- 

 sery catalogues and special reports. Some of the nuts are twice the size 

 of those of the forest, and shells have been reduced in thinness until 

 some of them are really thinner than they should be to stand the rough 

 usage which comes to them in reaching markets. 



Dealers occasionally polish pecans to impart the rich, brown 

 color which is supposed to give them the appearance of being fresh and of 

 high grade. The polishing is produced by friction, when the nuts in 

 bulk are shaken violently. Last year's stock takes on as bright a polish 

 as fresh stock, and the color and smoothness alone are not sufficient to 

 prove that pecans are fresh from the trees. 



The planted pecan tree grows rapidly and is as easily raised as fruit 

 trees. The wild tree is long-lived, and the cultivated varieties will 

 probably be like it. 



NUTMEG HICKORY (Hicoria myristicaformis) is so named because the nut has 

 the size and the wrinkled surface of a nutmeg, though the shape is different. The 

 husk enclosing the nut is almost as thin as paper. The only other name by which it is 

 known is bitter waternut, in Louisiana. The name scarcely applies, for the kernel is 

 said not to be bitter. The range of nutmeg hickory extends from the coast of South 

 Carolina to Arkansas. It is rather abundant in Arkansas, but scarce in most other 

 parts of its range. The tree has several interesting features. It was partly discover- 

 ed a long time before the discovery was complete. In 1802 Andre F. Michaux saw 

 the nut and to that extent the species was discovered, but many years passed before 

 a full description was given to the world by a competent botanist. The wood rates 

 among the strongest and stiffest of all the hickories, according to present information; 

 but the calculations were based on too few tests to be considered final. Two samples 

 of wood procured near Bonneau's depot, South Carolina, by W. H. Revenel, showed 

 the remarkable breaking strength of 19,822 pounds per square inch, and the measure 

 of stiffness exceeded 2,000,000 pounds to the square inch. That strength is sixteen 

 per cent above shagbark. The weight of nutmeg hickory is 46.96 pounds to the 

 cubic foot. The wood is hard, tough, and compact. The structure, including pores, 



