LUTHER BURBANK 



There seems every prospect that the increase will 

 be still more rapid in the coming decade. 



Peculiar interest attaches to the pecan because 

 it is the one nut indigenous to the United States 

 among those that at present have actual commer- 

 cial importance. The pecan, indeed, must be 

 looked to as now holding the position in the south- 

 ern portions of the United States that the chestnut 

 should occupy in the northern that of premier 

 nut. In recent years its merits have begun to 

 receive wide attention, as the figures just quoted 

 show, and the cultivation of pecan nuts for the 

 market is likely to become a really important 

 industry. Already there are numerous named 

 varieties on the market, each having its champions. 



These varieties have peculiar interest because 

 of the fact that each one of them represents not 

 an artificially developed product as in the case 

 of most varieties of fruits and grains, but merely 

 the progeny of an individual tree. 



It appears that here and there, particularly in 

 the state of Mississippi, there has grown a pecan 

 tree of unknown antecedents that became locally 

 famous for the large size and unusual quality of 

 its fruit. 



These trees, it will be understood, are all of 

 one species, and the nuts are obviously all of one 

 kind; no one would think of mistaking any one 



[26] 



