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] 
