18 Pecan-Growing 



favorite tree if they wished to propagate it. Dr. Colomb, 

 however, finding an exceptionally fine tree on the Anita plan- 

 tation of Amant Bourgeois, in St. James Parish, Louisiana, 

 attempted to propagate it by grafting, early in the forties. 

 Failing in this, he later cut cions from the tree and carried 

 them to the late Telesphore J. Eoman, owner of the Oak Alley 

 plantation, whose slave gardener, Antoine by name, succeeded 

 in grafting sixteen trees near the mansion and quarters during 

 the winter of 1846 or 1847. Later 110 trees on the same 

 plantation were grafted. The variety was the Centennial and 

 this was the first commercial orchard, i.e. the first planted 

 with the definite view of producing nuts for sale. Shortly 

 after the close of the Civil War (1865) nuts from this orchard 

 were selling at $50 to $75 a barrel. ^ 



This incident is epochal in pecan history, for without the 

 perpetuation of certain choice seedling trees by budding or 

 grafting, the industry never could have been standardized, 

 and the nuts, even in the best cultivated orchards, would have 

 been no more uniform and valuable than the greater part of 

 wild seedlings now on the market. However, during the 

 stormy reconstruction period following the Civil War, the 

 Anita plantation changed owners and the orchard was cut 

 down although it w^as at the height of its bearing, only a few 

 trees around the house being left. The propagation of pecans 

 by grafting was left undeveloped and unadvertised, and it 

 was nearly half a century later before asexual propagation of 

 these nut-trees became a general practice among growers. 



The next impetus to the pecan industry was given by Texas/ 

 When that state was opened for settlers, the pioneers found 



*Wm. A. Taylor, Promising New Fruits, Yearbook Dept. Agr., 

 p. 408. 



