— 157 — 



years, since Judge Heath stopped at San Antonio, all of which is in its 

 favor. 



Judge Heath says also: "I do not think they will ever be profitable 

 as nut-bearing trees, for the reason that the pecan does not drop its 

 fruit. In Texas and Louisiana along the Mississippi River bottoms, the 

 trees are cut down or the nuts are beaten off by negroes or the poor white 

 men, and the nuts are collected in that way." 



Judge Heath is mistaken about the pecan not dropping its fruit. Our 

 frosts are late, usually not until November. The second frost will clean 

 the tree of all sound nuts. The reason why the nuts are beaten off is 

 this: The gatherers make good wages and commence gathering as soon 

 as fit (even before), and rush them into market, as the earliest gathered 

 bring better prices than later when more plentiful. Another reason is 

 the Eastern and Northern markets want the pecans for the holiday trade, 

 which is the best trade of the year. There is great inducement to 

 gather early, for the gatherers can, during that season, earn enough to 

 support themselves for a great portion of the year. The cutting down 

 of the trees is now prohibited. 



Mr. Williams says : " Of the Texas pecan, not one in ten thousand 

 will produce nuts like the nut planted." Professor Stelle says: " Of the 

 Texas thin-shell pecan, fully 90 per cent (if not 100) will come true to 

 the nut planted." How doctors will differ ! 



Regarding planting the pecan where the tree is to stand, experience of 

 our best growers (a fact developed only lately) al] tells them that trans- 

 planting the pecan tree and cutting the tap-root is a great mistake, and 

 they with one accord say: "Don't cut the tap-root." I am well aware 

 that Judge Heath and many others who have done so have a beautiful 

 shade tree and also an unfruitful tree; that is, while they may bear a 

 few nuts their greatest value as a nut producer is gone. 



Professor Stelle says: "I have planted out such trees, and when seven 

 years old have dug them up, and not a semblance of a tap-root added 

 to the one planted. The trees had dwindled along, made but a sickly 

 growth, while trees on the same ground raised from seed, planted where 

 they grew, were vigorous and thrifty, and though three years younger, 

 were much larger than transplanted trees." 



DISCUSSION ON PECAN CULTURE. 



Mr. H. A. Brainard: I have observed the growth of the pecan in 

 Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and I have given the matter study 

 for several years here, and I find that as a general thing pecan culture 

 is not a success in California. I know of trees twenty years old that 

 have not borne twenty pounds of nuts in all that time. But I believe 

 that there are some sections in which pecan culture will be a success. 

 I was remarkably struck in passing up the Feather River, above Marys- 

 ville, with some low land lying between the orchards and the river, that 

 I believe will be excellent for pecan culture. The pecan will not do on 

 our ordinary dry lands, no matter how level, no matter how deep the 

 soil. You will find the nut in the section known as "The Willows," 

 near San Jose, where the soil is twenty feet deep — a deep alluvial sedi- 

 ment, as they call it — and yet the trees do not bear. I have never seen 



