22 Pecan-Growing 



Bacon estates. While there were still a nnmber of seedling 

 orchards planted, the more progressive growers and nursery- 

 men were advising grafted or budded stock. 



About 1900, the pecan was launched into a speculative crop. 

 Individuals as well as corporations went into pecan-gromng 

 on a large scale, and in many localities in southern Alabama, 

 Georgia, and Mississippi lands were quadrupled in price. 

 Hundreds of acres were set to pecans and sold in units of one 

 acre or more. In this as in all other new and promising in- 

 dustries, big holdings were purchased and partially developed 

 by persons whose chief aim was not to grow nuts, but to profit 

 by selling orchards, large and small, to the unsuspecting pub- 

 lic at fabulous prices. In spite of such instances, however, 

 the general progress of pecan-growing was not seriously 

 affected, so that at present it ranks as one of the foremost 

 horticultural industries of the South. 



In the northern part of the pecan belt, very little interest 

 has developed in the pecan as an orchard crop. Although 

 the nuts from the wild seedlings are still harvested and put 

 on the market, where they command a ready sale, the public 

 is too skeptical of the commercial possibilities of the grafted 

 or budded pecan to make a trial of it on a large scale. Scat- 

 tered groups of the named varieties in numbers up to ten 

 have been planted practically all over the section, but most 

 of them are not yet old enough to bear fruit. W. N. Roper, 

 of Petersburg, Virginia, was a pioneer in propagating varie- 

 ties suitable for the middle and northern pecan belts. To 

 him is due the Major, the original tree standing in what is 

 known as the Major or Green River groves, in Kentucky and 

 Ohio. W. C. Reed of Vincennes, Indiana, T. P. Littlepage of 

 Washington, R. L. McCoy and J. F. Wilkinson of Rockport, 



