In England Filbert culture is a very important industry. 

 In the County of Kent, famous for its Kentish Cobs, there 

 are 10,000 acres devoted to the culture of this most delicious 

 nut. There the shrubs are inter-planted between apple trees 

 and it is a common sight to see the terminal branches extend- 

 ing into the apple rows. In such orchards the cultivation 

 is all hand work. These immense shrubs, many of which 

 are fifty years old, are trained with stems 18 inches high and 

 many of them are of same diameter. The lateral branches 

 radiating from this stem are trained by pruning and pinch- 

 ing so that they are wen supplied with numerous fruit bear- 

 ing laterals, and the sh"rub has the appearance of a great 

 punch bowl. The method of planting is fifteen feet each 

 way, except where planted among orchard trees. The trees 

 are carefully pruned in the winter and in July the tender 

 growth is broken off, but never cut, as this has a tendency 

 to send out too much new wood. A heavy calcareous soil 

 with rocky substrata seems to be conducive to their highest 

 development. The Cob is distinguished from the Filbert by 

 being larger, heavier and broader, the Filbert is smaller, 

 narrower and earlier. 



THE PECAN 



Of the eight or nine species of hickories the one which 

 produces the most marketable fruit and in the most pro- 

 fitable quantities is the pecan. A native of the southern 

 states, it is today the only nut grown there and to a limited 

 extent in the middle states, which has any commercial im- 

 portance. Texas is probably the largest producer of pecans, 

 the crop aggregating several millions of pounds and gathered 

 almost exclusively from seedling trees. The business of 

 cracking pecans and selling the meats put up in attractive 

 packages has created a demand for the nuts, which is in- 

 creasing at a very rapid rate. It is largely due to the impetus 

 the industry has received in recent years that has encouraged 

 the planting of trees on a commercial scale of the im- 

 proved papershell types. The difficulty of extracting the 

 meat from the hard shell seedling nuts has been one of the 

 causes for their not being more popular as a dessert fruit. 

 The thin shells of the improved types, the ease with which 

 the meats are removed and the noticeable absence of the 

 fibrous segments found in the hard shell nuts, which possess 

 a peculiar acrid taste, will do much to make it popular. 



The lack of information regarding pecans in California has 

 been due to the fact that an impression has prevailed among 

 our horticulturists in general that our climatic conditions 

 are not favorable to their successful culture. That this is 

 an error is quite evident, for old seedling trees are found 

 growing and producing heavy crops annually in the Sacra- 

 mento and San Joaquin Valleys. A number of seedling trees, 

 two feet and over in diameter, are growing one mile north 

 of Fresno, bearing abundant crops. 



It is only within the last ten years that pecans have been 

 regarded of sufficient commercial importance to cause groves 

 to be planted in the middle and southern states, and the 

 condition of affairs has been brought about by the unexcelled 

 merit of the Papershell Pecan. In California only a very few 

 Papershells are to be found; none of these are over fifteen 

 years old, with the most complete assortment of varieties on 

 the Roeding Place. 



The trees thrive in a great variety of soils, doing well 

 in a stiff clay or porous sand, and in Texas they are said to 

 do well on soils underlaid with hardpan, provided proper 

 precautions are taken to blast it before planting. The plant- 

 ing of trees should be confined to soils where moisture is 

 either supplied by natural means or irrigation. Pecans will 

 prove a valuable acquisition to our list of nut fruits in the 

 warm interior valleys of California, Oregon and Washington. 

 In the coast counties, although the tree grows well, it does 

 not mature its nuts, due to the cool, foggy weather, which 

 does not seem conducive to the proper development of the 

 fruit before the dormant season sets in. 



The advisability of planting only named varieties of 

 grafted or budded trees is conceded by experienced planters. 

 When trees are grown from selected Papershell seeds, they 

 are liable to produce nuts of variable character in shape, 

 size, thickness of shell, and quality of meat. The additional 

 cost of growing named varieties either by budding or graft- 

 ing is caused by the very small percentage which a nursery- 

 man succeeds in growing. If the orchardist will only bear 

 in mind that the increased outlay for budded or 

 grafted trees is offset by the fact that they will 

 come into bearing in less than half the time 

 that seedlings do, and that the nuts will sell 

 for four times as much on the market, their 

 economy is at once obvious. 



The Pecan, like the walnut, is unisexual, that 

 is the male and female organs are not in the 



15 



