ROSETTE OF PECAN TREES 9 
The quantity of the nutrients commonly used as food by plants 
does not vary to any great extent in the Greenville and Norfolk 
orchards. The sample of Greenville soil obtained in 1918 contained 
less organic matter, nitrogen, and phosphorus, about the same 
quantity of calcium, and slightly more potash and magnesium than 
the Norfolk soil. 
The structure of the soil was good; it crumbled easily, and when 
E lowed and harrowed it was easily pulverized. However, it became 
ard and dry during the summer in times of drought. 
Samples of soil collected from the orchard late in 1922, four years 
after the first sampling was made, contained less nitrogen and organic 
matter than the samples taken in 1918. The organic matter (carbon) 
had decreased from 0.37 to 0.29 per cent and the nitrogen from 0.022 
to 0.018 per cent. These differences, though slight, tend to show that 
the soil was losing in the properties which determine fertility and 
crop-producing power under the cultural system practiced. 
CONDITION OF THE TREES 
The orchard under observation was in a very poor condition and 
badly rosetted in 1918. The trees had been in bad condition for two 
years prior to this date. At the time that they should have begun 
to produce nuts, rosette appeared and grew steadily worse. This 
was true of every variety, none escaping the disease. 
A record of 107 trees in the 18-acre orchard was kept. Photo- 
graphs were made in 1918 and the trees photographed again in 1922. 
Girth measurements to determine the growth of the trees were taken 
annually, and the quantity of dead wood resulting from rosette was 
recorded each year. 
The dead wood in the 107 trees weighed 453 pounds in 1917, or 
4.23 pounds per tree. In 1918 there were 845.5 pounds of rosetted 
wood, averaging 7.9 pounds per tree. These records were not made 
in subsequent years. 
The average girth growth of the 107 trees was five-eighths inch 
in 1918 and 1 inch in 1919. The yields in 1918 for the 107 trees 
totaled about 3.5 pounds of nuts. In 1919 less than 1 pound was 
harvested, and in 1920 only a few trees bore, the yield being very 
small. The trees have been in very poor condition since that time 
and have produced very little. The orchard was practically aban- 
doned by 1923. 
A photograph of a typical tree in this orchard is shown in Plate 
IV, A and B. It was taken in the summer of 1918 soon after the 
experiments were begun. The rosetted condition of this tree should 
be specially noted and compared with its condition four years later, 
as shown in the photograph taken in the late summer of 1922. In 
each case the trees were photographed from practically the same 
position and at the same distance. The trunk has increased in girth 
measurement, but the top has died back each year, and the condi- 
tion of the tree appears hopeless. 
