54 NUT CULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



the improved pecans are as variable in their seedliugs as other fruit trees and can 

 not be depended on to reproduce themselves from seed. 



B. M. Young, of Morgan City, La., sends us numerous specimen nuts grown from 

 seed which came from a single tree that stood at least one-fourth of a mile from any 

 other bearing tree. These nuts show a wide variation, none of them being alike, nor 

 like the nuts from the parent tree. 



On plate 8, fig. 10, will be found an illustration of a large pecan grown in San 

 Saba County, Tex. Fig. 11 of the same plate shows a seedling from it grown in the 

 same county. The grower, who formerly depended upon seedlings for planting, now 

 advocates budded trees. Though selected seed is more likely to produce trees bearing 

 superior nuts, than is seed taken at random, the only sure way of increasing a desired 

 type is evidently by some method of bud propagation. 



Cuttings. Pecan cuttings callus when stored in damp sawdust, and it is probable 

 that in a damp climate, such as that of Mississippi and Louisiana, the tree may be 

 propagated in this way. When the lateral roots of the pecan are broken by the plow 

 the ends of these roots frequently send up thrifty shoots; so the suggestion has been 

 made that it could be propagated by cutting the slender roots of trees known to bear 

 choice nuts, and raising the cut ends nearly to the surface, fixing them there until 

 leaves and branches are developed from adventitious buds. 



Layering. Reports from Texas state that in 1886 some large, bearing pecan trees 

 were blown down; a number of their lateral roots remained unbroken and in place 

 under ground. The trees so fell that large limbs were bent and split and broken 

 by contact with the ground. The fractured pieces were driven a foot or more into 

 the wet soil. The limbs projecting above the fracture, and also other limbs of the 

 trees, have since borne nuts. In these cases digging down under the fractures has 

 disclosed new roots. This would indicate that propagation could be effected by 

 layering. For the increase of some specially choice variety this method may be worth 

 the trial. 



Allied stocks. At the threshold of propagation, we are met with the question: Is 

 there no stock other than ordinary pecan that will insure a healthy growth of bud or 

 graft of this nut, and that will give more lateral and fibrous roots and insure more 

 dwarfish growth of the top? 



The pecan will form a healthy union with any of the hickories, and possibly some 

 strain of the lower-growing sorts may be found that will give good results. One of the 

 possibilities in this line is the re-discovery of a dwarf pecan which is believed to be in 

 existence somewhere in the South. In 1853 John LeConte presented before the Acad- 

 emy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia a unique pecan which he named Hicoria 

 Texana, and of which he said the habit was to grow 10 or 12 feet high. By letters to 

 numerous correspondents and by inquiries through newspapers in the South we have 

 endeavored to secure specimens of it, but have not yet succeeded in locating a tree 

 of the species. Some nuts (pi. 12, fig. 7) sent to the Department by W. E. Stuart in 

 December, 1890, from some unrernembered correspondent of his in Texas, are probably 

 identical with LeConte's Texana of 1853. Mr. LeConte says of H. Texana: "This 

 species of Hicoria, which I found cultivated in Georgia, is a native of the State of 

 Texas. The small altitude it attains, the later period of its foliation, and the very 

 different form of the nut readily distinguish it from every other hitherto described. 

 The tree is about 10 feet high, leaves 13 inches long, frequently rather over than under 

 this measurement, with a terminal one on a rather long petiole; leaflets lanceolate, 

 acuminate, the lower ones more convex on the upper than the lower edge, dentate on 

 the upper edge from about one- third of the distance from the base; the lower edge is 

 almost entire, except a few small teeth near the point. The terminal leaflet is dentate 

 on both edges, but not near the base; nut somewhat ovate, pointed at the upper 

 extremity, less so at the lower, flattened, somewhat rough and slightly angled ; one- 

 fourth inch long, 1 inch broad. It differs from H. olivceformis, or common pecan [now 



