November, 1889. 
203 
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The Pecan-nut. 
(Cary a olivceformis.) 
Have you any Pecan trees on your place? 
If you have not, now is the season to think 
of procuring them. It is one of our richest 
native nuts. In congenial situations it bears : 
abundantly and may be made a source of 
much profit, and it is at all times a tree w hich 
in the yard, fence corner, or along the road- 
side, is worth its place alone for ornament and 
shade. The notion, so prevalent, that it is not 
hardy at the North is erroneous in-as-much 
as it grows wild in river bottoms from Cen- 
tral Illinois and Southern Iowa southward, 
places where the temperature often falls to 
15° or 20° below zero, and occasionally it is 
found much further 
North. However, this 
does not mean that all 
pecan trees are hardy in 
these latitudes. South- 
ern strains would un- 
doubtedly be winter-kill- 
ed where trees from 
northern grown nuts 
prove to be hardy, and 
the reason that so many 
who attempt to grow 
them find their young 
trees winter-killed and be- 
come discouraged at the 
failure, is no doubt often 
due to the fact that they 
procure their nuts from 
groceries and store-keep- 
ers indiscriminately who, 
as a rule, deal in southern 
grown nuts. Raise or 
procure your trees from 
nuts grown in the North, 
and, although it is not 
an absolute guarantee of 
hardiness, the percentage 
that winter-kill will be very small. 
Seedling trees are most common simply 
because other methods of propagation are 
too uncertain to render them practical, at 
least when trees are grown on a commercial 
scale; but the pecan can be grafted on hick- 
ory stocks and when successful renders the 
tree more hardy and induces early fruitful- 
ness. Some experiments on this point are 
necessary both as regards the best method 
of grafting, and the best stocks to use. We 
venture to suggest to the horticulturists of 
the Experiment Stations that a careful ser- 
ies of experiments in this line would tend 
to establish facts of great practical value, 
and would be hailed with approval by all 
fruit growers. We need reliable informa- 
tion as to what species of the half dozen or 
more indigenous caryas will furnish the 
best stock for the pecan, the stock on which 
it grows most easily and freely; also the 
best time and method of grafting, the in- 
fluence of the stock on hardiness, pro- 
ductiveness and other points of value. 
Two facts appear to be fairly well estab- 
lished in pecan culture. The tree requires 
a rich soil to bear abundant and regular 
crops, and isolated trees bear less, as a rule, 
than when in groups of several wliere-by 
the pollenation of the fertile flowers is fa- 
cilitated. 
The finest pecan trees the writer has ever 
seen are to be found in the rich alluvial soil 
along the streams and in the river bottoms 
of Northern Texas, in the belt of the so-call- 
ed “black land.” True giants of the forest 
they rear their heads with the tallest, in this 
region of tall trees, and yield enormously 
But as is often the case with good things 
when they can be had in superabundance, 
these trees are not always appreciated by 
their owners. An old gentleman who own- 
ed a number of such trees once informed 
the writer that he calculated his yearly 
The English Filbert. Fig. 117. 
crop of pecans to amount to 500 bushels, 
“but,” he added, “I never bother picking 
them up. what with the wages of pickers 
and freight to market, I don’t think there is 
much in them.” 
But fortunately few are equally indiffer- 
ent. Prospective owners of a grove should 
procure the nuts now. For the northern 
and middle States select large, thin-slielled 
nuts from those latitudes and plant them at 
once before they have a chance to dry out. 
Fresh nuts seldom fail to grow, and with a 
little protection for the seedlings during 
the first winter a large percentage will 
prove hardy. — C. C. G. 
Tbe English Filbert. 
(Cnrylus avellana.) 
When one finds the European filbert sell- 
ing in Broadway stores at one dollar or 
more per pound he is apt to wonder why 
the nut is not grown commercially in this 
country. There is no reason why it may 
not be grown here since certain varieties of 
these nuts do succeed here as well as in 
Engl rnd, but that there is no home supply 
of nuts offered is shown by the fact that 
the imported nuts bring the prices named. 
There has been a great deal of mystery 
thrown around the culture of the filbert and 
one has been led to believe that much skill 
and knowledge is required in the matter of 
training and pruning the bush to attain any 
degree of fruitfulness. It is true that the 
successful cultivation of this nut does large- 
ly depend upon its pruning and training but 
it is certainly not beyond the skill of any 
ordinary gardener or indeed of anyone who 
has intelligence enough to properly prune 
and train a grape vine. 
To raise plants from seed one must have 
well ripened nuts, which the imported nuts 
are not, since they are almost always gath- 
ered in an immature state in order to sell 
them in the husks. 
Hence it is necessary to 
import special seed for 
planting, which has 
been left on the trees 
until fully ripe. It is 
cheaper therefore and 
less trouble to buy 
young trees from nur- 
serymen in this coun- 
try, when only a few 
are wanted, and cer- 
tainly everyone who 
has a garden, we think, 
would like to possess a 
few filbert bushes, for 
one who has never 
tasted a fresh filbert 
just gathered from the 
tree has yet to learn the 
delicious flavor of these 
nuts. 
The European filbert 
should be grown as a 
tree and the suckers 
cut out unless needed 
for propagation. Train 
to a single stem, in standard form, with no 
branches nearer the ground than three feet, 
and the top pruned into a vase form, open 
and airy. This is the best mode of training 
for the amateur and will make also a good 
appearance. Commercial growers in Eu- 
rope prefer the bush form from which 
they obtain a greater yield owing to their 
system of pruning for fruit, somewhat 
after the manner of grape pruning. 
A variety ( C . tubulosa) commonly 
known as Lambert’s Filbert, Kentish Cob, 
etc., is of oblong shape and one of the larg- 
est and finest of them all. The illustration 
here presented shows a cluster of the com- 
mon English filbert in the husk, a single 
specimen of the same, and lower down a 
single nut of the Kentish Cob filbert. The 
curious spray at the top of the picture shows 
the catkins or male blossoms which are mo- 
noecious, i. e., the male and female flowers 
are distinct and borne on the same tree. 
