CHAPTER XXVI. 



The Pecan. 



IN the former edition of the book, I had very little to say 

 about nut-growing, as at that time no interest was taken 

 in the subject ; but the case is very different now. While 

 the recent successful fruiting, by Mr. G. A. Schattenberg, of 

 Boerne, Texas, of the English walnut budded on the wild 

 Mexican variety, so common in west Texas, opens a wide 

 field for experiment with that valuable nut, the native pecan 

 offers opportunity for profitable investment in the South 

 that cannot be surpassed. Of course, many exaggerated 

 statements as to immediate profits and entire immunity of 

 the tree and nuts from insect pests, as well as the certainty 

 of annual crops, are going the rounds of the papers, and the 

 intending pecan-grower should inform himself well before 

 going into the business ; but, discounting all these, a pecan 

 grove of improved varieties will, in time, say ten or fifteen 

 years, undoubtedly pay good and constantly increasing 

 profits. Or the quicker method of sawing off large trees 

 from 6 to 10 feet above the ground, allowing all shoots to 

 grow the first year and budding three or more of them the 

 following season, can be adopted with great success. All 

 those having natural groves will find in the various bulletins 

 issued from Washington, and also by the State Experiment 

 stations, the necessary information of how to top-bud such 

 trees, so I will confine my remarks entirely to establishing 

 new groves. In so doing the two all-important points are, 

 first, how to prepare and plant the trees, and second, how 

 and where to get young trees grown from bearing ones, thus 

 ensuring earlier fruiting by many years than if trees grown 

 from young nursery ones are used. There is also good 

 evidence to prove that the varieties so successful in the 

 alluvial soils of the Mississippi valley and in the moist 



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