THE PECAN. 25 



worked, will give nuts of the highest market value. 



It will be urged as a reason for not planting pecans that years 

 must pass before the time of the first harvest. That is true; but, 

 after planting, the land on which the grove has been started in- 

 creases in value each year as the growing trees approach the bear- 

 ing age. Nor is it necessary to wait more than a single year for 

 returns for, according to the character of the soil and facilities for 

 transportation, other crops may be grown on the same land during 

 the development period. And if such crops be selected with good 

 judgment and rightly managed they will pay the cost of establishing 

 the grove, and leave a substantial surplus. 



Once established a pecan grove is a fixture, a heritage which will 

 bring an unfailing income to successive generations. Subject to only 

 trifling attacks from few insects or diseases, and these yielding 

 readily to skilful treatment, the mature tree is practically indestructi- 

 ble. Splintered by lightning or felled by the axe of the nut 

 gatherer who seeks in this manner to facilitate his work, new shoots 

 quickly spring up from blasted trunk or stump, forming in time 

 another tree. Several correspondents quoted in these pages have 

 facetiously remarked that they "never knew a pecan to die a natural 

 death." One reports the counting of "six hundred rings just to 

 show what a Texas tree can do." All agree that the yield of nuts 

 increases for 40 or 50 years, when the tree is thought to be full- 

 grown, and that it lives for an indefinite period, probably for several 

 hundred years, continuing to bear its valuable harvest of nuts. 

 As indicating the size attained by some of the old pecans, it is 

 recorded that a single tree has given 1,200 pounds in nuts in one 

 year! Think of the value of that tree had its fruit been Frotscher, 

 Van Deman, Stuart, or other of the highly prized forms, the average 

 price of which is $1.20 a pound! 



The argument in favor of planting pecans may be thus summed 

 up: 



1. The pecan is a nut of unexcelled qualities. By many con- 

 sidered the best of nuts. Choice forms are 



(a) Large in size; 24 to the pound; 2}i inches in length. 



(b) Thin-shelled; may be crushed in the hand. 



(c) FuU-meated; delicate in flavor. 



(d) Highest in food value. 



2. Demand constantly increasing. Price advancing. Supply 

 diminishing, due to the inexcusable practice of cutting down large 

 trees to more readily gather the nuts; and also to clearing forest 

 land to make way for farm crops. 



3. Crop increases for 50 years and continues for an indefinite 

 period thereafter. . Left to themselves nuts fall to ground ; picked up ; 

 barreled and shipped. No expensive handling as with fruit, or as 

 with some other nuts which require long drying, bleaching, etc., to 

 prepare them for market. 



4. Not perishable. May be stored for better prices, or sent 

 to any part of the world without danger of spoiling in transit. 



5. Owner of grove may sell product in shells, in meats direct 



