History of Pecan-Growing 17 



Caroliniana ' ' in 1787. He was au Englishman who had a 

 plantation in St. John's Parish on the Santee River, South 

 Carolina, where he made an extensive collection of southern 

 plants which are preserved in the British Museum. 

 After describing the foliage of the pecan tree, evidently a 

 nursery specimen, he ended with the words ''fructus non 

 vidi" — the fruit I have not seen. 



Thus, from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the 

 opening of the nineteenth, the pecan was scattered from its 

 habitat in the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic coast by 

 Indians, travelers, and by men like Washington who loved a 

 beautiful tree. From Texas to the Carolinas there are num- 

 bers of huge seedling pecan trees that must date from pioneer 

 days and whose majestic and hoary beauty has graced the 

 southern landscape for over a hundred years and whose fruit 

 has been treasured by all the succeeding generations. They 

 are fitting monuments to some one 's interest in trees and the 

 planter is ^' blest in that he has blest many.'' 



The nineteenth century witnessed a different sort of de- 

 velopment of the pecan. Between 1800 and 1900 the pecan 

 was changed from a wild nut to an improved orchard product 

 of great commercial value. The story of this progress is again 

 that of venturesome spirits, men who dared to tread unknown 

 paths, explorers in science and industry. The first of these 

 was A. E. Colomb, of St. James Parish, Louisiana. His per- 

 sistence demonstrated that nut-trees, and especially pecans, 

 could be propagated by grafting. Until this time and for 

 nearly half a century afterward, it was generally supposed 

 that nut-trees could not be reproduced asexually, and writers 

 on forestry and orcharding seemed to acquiesce in this theory. 

 Consequently until 1890 the public planted nuts from a 



