THE RETURNS FROM A PECAN GROVE. 
What We May Expect From It. 
This is the tiling that the purchaser of pecan trees 
is most vitally interested in, and about which he 
makes the most inquiries, and it is the thing about 
which the seller tells most of his falsehoods. It is 
the only point upon which the horticultural public 
most needs truthful information just at the present 
time. At the last meeting of the Nut Growers’ Asso¬ 
ciation at Jamestown, many of the foremost horticul¬ 
turists of the United States came, and some of them 
put the point-blank question as to what were the re¬ 
turns from a pecan grove, and how long before one 
might expect results. After many exaggerated state¬ 
ments, friend Pabst, who has learned to 
tell the plain truth, got up and said: 
“Gentlemen, you know the apple; well, 
the pecan can be relied to do just 
about what the apple would do.’’ The 
howl went up, “Oh, Mr. Pabst, if you 
talk that way you will ruin our trade in 
trees.” Now I shall tell the plain truth* 
about this matter, even if it does ruin 
our trade in trees. Unluckily 1 cannot 
give any exact figures as to the returns 
from my grove, for although I spent 21 
years at school, going from the lowest 
school in America, up through the 
highest university in Europe, still my 
instructors did not think it necessary 
1o teach me such a useful thing as book¬ 
keeping. Our whole system of educa¬ 
tion in the past was simply a farce, 
and our teachers were “blind leaders of 
the blind.” But I believe that is rapidly 
changing now, and that our young peo¬ 
ple are being taught things that will be 
useful to them. 
As to returns from a pecan grove, I 
can safely say that no one can reason¬ 
ably expect any returns from a pecan 
in less than 10 years from the time 
lie sets it out. Even Mr. Pabst, as truth¬ 
ful as he is, exaggerated a little hit. 
The average apple orchard will give 
quicker returns than a pecan grove. 
'I'lic whole trouble about this pecan 
matter is that the seller has told half 
truths and led the purchaser astray by 
drawing deductions from them. All I 
can say is that where one goes about 
the matter right and complies with the 
instructions given in my article on the 
four great essentials to successful 
pecan growing, lie will have in a few 
years a very valuable possession in his 
pecan grove. Nobody in this world 
knows what that grove will pay any 
given year, and any man who says he 
knows lies. How many times have I been asked: 
“How old must a grafted pecan tree be before it 
will bear 50 pounds of nuts?” My invariable reply 
is: “I do not know. Nobody knows; if he says he 
knows he lies in order to sell you trees.” 
Now I know a great many facts about individual 
pecan trees, the results from which seem startling, 
hut I have no right to state that whole groves can 
be made to give like results in the same time. I 
know that the grafting wood from my grove alone 
paid all my expenses at the great sanitariums the two 
years 1 was down and out. I know that the Chas. 
A. Green pecan tree bore $80 worth of pecans in one 
year. I know that Hugh Lacy, of Vicksburg, got 
one-half bushel of nuts from a five-year-old bud of 
Moneymaker inserted in an old sprout. And I have 
pretty good testimony to prove that there is a pecan 
tree in the suburbs of Vicksburg that has borne nuts 
annually to sell for enough to keep one man drunk 
for six months out of the 12 for the last 15 years. 
However, let us have the whole truth, and not the 
half truth. The Vicksburg tree was perhaps 30 years 
old, and stood in a cow lot; the Moneymaker sprout 
probably had a root system under it that was 25 
years old, and the Chas. A. Green pecan tree stood 
in a perfect hotbed of fertility, and was 25 years old 
when it made its big record. There is one truth 
that I can positively state about pecans, and that is, if 
I had known 24 years ago what 1 know to-day abouf 
pecans my grove would now be paying me 10 times 
as much as it is to-day. It is on that account that 
1 am telling the beginner what I know. A very wise 
old man once told me that the saddest feature about 
humanity to him was the fact that very few people 
were willing to profit by the experience of others, 
and that each had to learn by his own sad experience. 
Still there are a few who will listen. 
I here has been a tremendous amount of misinfor¬ 
mation scattered all over the country just for the 
simple purpose of “not ruining our trade in trees.” 
Many and many a time have 1 been indignant at mis¬ 
statements which I have known positively were false, 
and were put out to deceive, and that did deceive. 
The pecan grove is no get-rich-quick affair. It is a 
slow way of making money. To some men, when 
properly conducted, it is a safe investment. To others 
it is the height of folly to invest in it. The widow, 
with several children, with but a small amount of 
cash, should not invest in pecan trees. I have always 
had the nerve to tell her so. The man who would 
induce her to buy pecan trees under the circumstances 
is an unmitigated rascal. The man in town who has 
a small salary, and who is barely making his living, 
should not jump his job and come South to plant 
pecan trees. The man who would induce him to do 
so is acting in bad faith to him. And yet there are 
people who may legitimately plant pecan trees. Who 
arc they? Those men who own land already, and 
who expect to live on it, and men who are rich 
enough to buy land and put a competent man upon it 
to take care of it. You need no more expect a pecan 
orchard to do well without a competent man back 
of it, than you need expect a bank to 
succeed under like conditions. 
The world is calling every year for 
more and more nuts, and when the 
world calls loud enough for a thing, and 
is willing to pay the price, it usually 
gets it. The pecan is by far the best of 
all nuts. There is no question about 
that. I mean the fine Louisiana nut; I 
do not mean the Texas wild one. 
'1 here will he thousands, yes, millions, 
of acres planted in them. It has already 
become one of the great industries of 
the South. An honest man sold to a 
reliable party less than two weeks ago 
$8,500 worth of pecan trees for his own 
individual planting. About half 'the 
trees that are being planted to-day are 
absolutely worthless, owing to the fact 
that the purchaser has not made proper 
investigations about the seller. He 
thinks he is getting grafted trees. He 
is getting the worst class of seedlings. 
I he picture at Fig. 350 shows what 
was once the finest pecan tree in the 
world. It stood before the war in the 
quarter lot of the old Cottage Oaks 
Plantation, Louisiana. This old mon¬ 
arch stood within too yards of my 
grove. When the Cottage Oaks Planta¬ 
tion was divided one-half went to Capt. 
Geo. Barnes, and was afterwards sold 
to Cofi F. L. Maxwell, the largest cot¬ 
ton planter in Louisiana, and it was on 
his land the pecan tree stood when the 
photograph was taken. Many celebrated 
horticulturists have come hundreds of 
miles to sec this tree, and they all 
agreed that this was the finest pecan 
tree in the world. The tree stood, as 
near as we can estimate, 150 feet high, 
with a circumference of trunk over 10 
feet, six feet above the ground. Look 
how small the negro houses look below 
it along the roadway! Though it stood 
amidst many tall trees in the Louisiana lowlands, 
still it could be seen for miles towering above them 
all. However, it paid dearly for its ambition, the 
great storm of two years ago tearing it all to pieces, 
and nothing is now left save its monstrous trunk. 
But for many years it will be known as the “Monarch 
of Them All.” sam h. james. 
Louisiana. 
“A BUSHEL OF BEANS.” 
I was quite interested reading the correspondence 
on “A Bushel of Beans.” 1 have been growing beans 
for 25 years, and have been buying from other grow¬ 
ers for the past 15 years, and preparing and shipping 
to eastern markets, and therefore feel that I know all 
sides of the subject of buying and selling beans. C. 
