ON NUT GROWING 
of them for anything but a pecan. Yet the indi- 
viduality—the personality—of each tree is re- 
vealed in the average character as to size, shape, 
and peculiarities of shell and kernel, of its fruit, 
and also as to great difference in productiveness 
and earliness or lateness of bearing. 
THE VARIETIES OF PecAN Nuts 
Of course such individuality is precisely what 
we have become accustomed to expect in orchard 
fruits and other plants under cultivation. But 
until recently it has not been generally understood 
that such diversity is commonly to be found among 
wild plants. So the case of the pecan furnishes an 
interesting illustration of the variation of plants 
in the wild state. The pecan trees that show these 
individual variations are precisely like the culti- 
vated varieties of orchard fruits in that they do 
not breed true from seed. Doubtless it might be 
possible to develop true botanical varieties from 
each of them by selective breeding, but this is not 
Necessary any more than in the case of orchard 
fruits. For, like other trees, the pecan may be 
propagated by grafting or budding. 
Nothing more is necessary than to make cut- 
tings of twigs or buds from the parent stock, graft- 
ing these as cions on an ordinary pecan stock, to 
produce new trees in indefinite numbers, all of 
which retain the precise quality of the parent. 
[27] 
