52 NUT CULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 







AREA PROBABLY ADAPTED TO PECAN CULTURE. 



It is perhaps too soon to judge accurately how far tlie area of its growth may be 

 extended northward with any certainty of producing profitable crops, owing to the 

 fact that the trees are found to make a very satisfactory growth in latitudes where 

 the male and female blossoms fail to bloom at the same time, and consequently fail to 

 set fruit. 



B. F. Johnson, of Champaign, 111., who has given some attention to the subject, 

 says: "There will be a host of disappointed ones if many try to grow the pecan 

 for fruit north of 38. It succeeds best south of 35. Like osage orange and 

 honey locust, the pecan loves the moist bottoms of rivers, and bears fairly well 

 on the Illinois Eiver as far north as 40. But the pecan, like the English [Persian] 

 walnut, Juglans regia, withstands the low temperature of a northern latitude and 

 grows to a fairly good size much farther north than it will produce fruit. In 

 northern California the English [Persian] walnut is barren, although having complete 

 and healthy flowers, because of the unequal development in point of time of the 

 female and the male blossoms; the former develop, dry up, and fall off before the 

 male blossoms are mature." A similar inequality of development of the male and 

 female blossoms is, he thinks, responsible for the barrenness of a pecan tree of his 

 own planting, which, though blooming full yearly for the last five or six years, has 

 failed to yield more than a few dozen inferior nuts. Similar conditions in the case of 

 other species of fruits and nuts suggest the possibility of furnishing a pollen supply 

 at the proper time by setting an occasional tree of either the shagbark or shellbark 

 hickory in the pecan orchard where the fruit is not intended for reproducing pecan 

 trees. Plantings now made will probably demonstrate how far north pecan culture 

 can be made profitable. Present indications are that there is a possibility of success 

 in favored localities as far north as the Mason and Dixon line, extending across the 

 country as far as the southwest corner of Ohio and thence northwest to Davenport, 

 Iowa. The lines of extension of pecan culture toward the north and west will be 

 mainly up the rivers that flow into the region of natural growth. The outlook for 

 the pecan in California is very encouraging. The California Fruit Grower reports 

 that at a meeting of the State Horticultural Society, December, 1890, pecans from 

 the farm of Mr. Wolfskill, at Winters, were exhibited. This exhibition was followed 

 by a discussion on "pecan growing for profit." George Husmann said that, in his 

 opinion, there. are pecan trees of both sexes, and that this accounts for the fact that 

 many trees raised from seed do not bear nuts. On this account it was advised that 

 trees be always budded or grafted with varieties that are known to bear regular 

 crops of large, well-shaped nuts. Gustav Eisen spoke of pecan trees growing near 

 the Merced Eiver which had attained a height of 60 feet. E. J. Wickson thought 

 this the only species of the hickory family worth experimenting with in California, all 

 other species having proved almost valueless. Fred C. Niles noted an instance of the 

 successful culture of the "Eastern hickory nut at an elevation of 3,000 feet." 



DICECEOUS VARIETIES. 



There is a widespread belief that some varieties of pecan are dioeceous. Mr. 

 Husmaun's statement, noted above, is supported by the evidence of certain expert 

 axmen of Texas, by whom some pecan trees are designated as "he," or male, trees and 

 these persons say that such trees never bear nuts. It has also been observed that 

 when supplied with abundance of pollen from adjacent trees certain other pecan trees 

 regularly produce an abundance of full-meated nuts ; but later, when the other pecan 

 trees are cut down, the solitary tree bears only occasional crops of nuts, always hollow, 

 without meat. 



