1908. 
THE FOUR GREAT COMMERCIAL PECANS. 
It has been just 30 years and three months since 
I first started growing pecan trees. I was the first 
man in the United States to plant a large pecan 
grove. Then it was considered a folly; now it is 
looked upon as a very wise thing. I planted my large 
grove 24 years ago last Winter, which now puts it 
in its twenty-fifth year. This grove consists of over 
a thousand trees and more than a hundred acres. I 
THE STUART PECAN. Fig. 197. 
have planted a few trees from year to year, but most 
of the trees arc now in their twenty-fifth year. When 
the process of grafting and budding the pecan was 
discovered I soon learned it, and changed a large pro¬ 
portion of my trees into named varieties; in fact, I 
have tested nearly every variety as it came out. 
These buds inserted in the tops of large trees gave 
me quick results, and I am now in a position to make 
an exact estimate of the various varieties for field 
culture and for commercial growing. 
I'or a pecan to be a success as a commercial variety 
it must have the following virtues: First of all it 
must have a stout, vigorous constitution; it must 
ripen its fruit and wood early in the season; it must 
have large size and good flavor, a thin shell, and 
must come out of the shell whole, and it must be a 
good annual bearer. After testing nearly every named 
variety I find only four that have all these good 
points; they are Stuart, Moneymaker, Pabst and Van 
Deman. I was much pleased and gratified when I 
met Prof. Van Deman at the Louisiana State Horti¬ 
cultural Society in February, to find that after thor¬ 
ough investigation he had come to exactly the same 
conclusion, and that lie was planting these four var¬ 
ieties almost exclusively in his large pecan orchard 
just a few miles south of me. 
From our present lights Stuart must he the finest 
pecan in the world. It comes as near perfection as 
anything in this world could be. It has a splendid 
growth and ripens its nuts early enough for all com¬ 
mercial purposes. '\ lie nuts themselves are large 
and fine, of the richest flavor, and nearly always well 
filled out. The Stuart has only one fault, and that is 
it is rather slow in coming into bearing. No man 
can make a mistake in planting a genuine Stuart tree. 
Next in order let us notice Moneymaker. This 
variety bears more heavily on young trees than any 
other. It will eventually be used as a filler between 
other varieties. It is the only pecan I ever tested 
that would bear heavily on young trees. Mr. Hugh 
Lacy, of Vicksburg, last Fall gathered one-half bushel 
of nuts from a five-year-old Moneymaker bud inserted 
in the top of an old sprout. As Moneymaker is my 
own production I shall let Prof. Van Deman describe 
it. He has planted 150 acres to it in his pecan or¬ 
chard. The following description is from The R. 
N.-Y., April 8, 1905: “The original Moneymaker tree 
began to bear at an early age, and has continued to 
bear heavy annual crops nearly every year since. I 
have seen it several times and always well loaded 
with nuts, excepting once, also younger trees. They 
are almost equal to the largest in size, roundish ovate 
in shape, thin shelled, kernel plump, and comes out 
of the shell easily. The quality is good but not best. 
The tree is spreading, the wood very tough, and is 
propagated more easily than most varieties. The nuts 
ripen very early, which is of great importance for 
northern sections. For general market purposes 
Moneymaker is one of the best pecans to plant.” In 
a letter received from Mr. Benjamin Buckman, Farm- 
ingdale, Ill., lie writes me: “Moneymaker has stood 
the MONEYMAKER PECAN. Fig. 198. 
degrees below zero here with no more injury than 
a Kieffer pear.” 
Van Deman copies next. No one will ever regret 
having planted a Van Deman pecan tree; that 
I s , if lie will give it care. It is a magnificent grower. 
Its nuts are good to look at, and most of all they are 
good to eat. It is a large, long, dark pecan that will 
< flight all. It is sometimes not very well filled out, 
and it is a little slow in coming into bearing, but its 
virtues are so much greater than its defects that I 
can unhesitatingly endorse it after long years of trial. 
THE RURAI> NEW-YORKER 
Last of all, but not least, comes Pabst, a good pecan 
named after a good, honest man. If there were more 
pecans and more men like them the pecan tree 
business would not have such a bad reputation to-day. 
The Pabst is everything that could be desired in a 
commercial pecan. It may be a little slow hi coming 
into bearing, but this is its only fault. The growth 
of the trees is superb. The flavor is fine, and the nuts 
look well. It is far superior in every way to Russell, 
another pecan introduced by Mr. Pabst, and which 
has proved a failure for field culture except along the 
Gulf Coast. It is a failure for the latitude of Vicks¬ 
burg and north. But the Pabst pecan is a grand suc¬ 
cess, and will long remain a fine monument to the 
good man who introduced it. Here are the four 
pecans which 30 years have taught me are safe to 
plant for commercial puropses. If I were planting a 
grove today I would plant Stuart, Van Deman and 
Pabst every hundred feet, and I would put Money¬ 
maker trees in as fillers, every 50 feet, for early re¬ 
turns, to be taken out when the other trees come into 
bearing. On young trees Moneymaker will bear 10 
pounds of pecans for one pound on any other variety. 
In some future article I shall show how Russell, 
Centennial, Frotschcr, Columbian, Georgia Giant, 
Halbert and Schley have all proven failures as com¬ 
mercial pecans, and give the reason why. In conclu¬ 
sion I shall caution the man wishing to plant pecan 
trees of the danger of buying them from a man he 
knows little about. Before you buy any trees make 
thorough investigation of the firm from whom you 
HAIRY-ROOTED APPLE TREE, NINE YEARS PLANTED. 
Fig. 199. See Kurallsms, Page 450. 
buy, for there are more rascals in this business than 
any other, and millions of worthless trees have been 
sold for good ones. sam. h. james. 
Louisiana. 
“A FERTILIZER ANALYSIS.” 
Part V. 
On page 407 we referred to a fertilizer made by the 
Buffalo Company for parties in Maine. The average 
of 13 samples showed a shortage from the guarantee 
of $2.79 worth of plant food in each ton. In this 
case the quality as well as the quantity of the nitro¬ 
gen was considered. It was found that this nitrogen 
“was practically all in the form of tankage of good 
grade and sulphate of ammonia.” There was little 
if any nitrate nitrogen in these goods. There has 
been some discussion as to whether it is economical 
to have more than one form of nitrogen in a potato 
fertilizer. In Ohio and some other States it has been 
argued that only one form is needed, and'that it is a 
waste of time or money to make complicated mix¬ 
tures of different chemicals. One of the most concise 
arguments for the use of nitrates in such a fertilizer 
is made by Dr. Woods, of the Maine Station, in 
speaking of this same Buffalo fertilizer: 
While nitrogen in any available form can be used by 
plants, it is generally agreed by plant physiologists that 
plants only take it up after the nitrogen lias been changed 
451 
inlo nitrate nitrogen. In the case of ammonia salts and 
organic nitrogen, the change to nitrate nitrogen goes on 
in the soil duo to the action of bacteria. This change 
takes place only slowly in cold and wet soil, and does not 
Proceed at all rapidly until (he soil becomes warm. Hence 
in the first early days of Spring, organic nitrogen applied 
in a fertilizer may be practically unavailable to a plant. 
For this reason the Station has always recommended that 
a potato fertilizer carry about a third of its nitrogen 
in the form of nitrate nitrogen. The potato seems to 
demand nitrogen in the early part of its growth, and 
while organic nitrogen becomes available later, it might 
THE VAN DEMAN PECAN. Fig. 200. 
happen that In the early part of the season, a crop 
manured with only organic nitrogen or nitrogen in the 
form of ammonia salts, would make a poor growth during 
the first weeks. 
This statement is based upon conditions in Maine, 
where the soil is cold and Spring is late. In the 
South, or on warmer soil, there might not be so great 
a need of nitrate nitrogen, yet it must now be evident 
to anyone that the soluble forms are worth more 
than those which do not decay readily. No man who 
has ever studied the fertilizer question would ever 
pay 15 cents a pound for ammonia in dried muck, 
ground leather or coarse tankage. Any man who had 
$100 would rather exchange it for gold coin of the 
same value than for a note without good security and 
payable five years hence without interest. That is a 
fair illustration of the difference in buying nitrate 
nitrogen or organic nitrogen in muck or other inert 
forms. When the Buffalo Company and the Smith 
Chemical Company offer to sell an analysis and the 
chemist simply reports so much “ammonia” you are 
but little wiser than you were before because you do 
not know whether this “ammonia” is worth to your 
crops 15 cents or one cent per pound. Prof. Hopkins 
of Illinois has made experiments in the soil, not in 
the laboratory, with muck such as is used for a 
“filler” in fertilizers. The nitrogen was worth halt 
a cent a pound compared with 15 cents a pound for 
nitrogen in dried blood. Yet thousands of tons have 
been sold, farmers paying the price of the best for 
this worthless stuff because it was all figured as 
“ammonia.” 
But how can a farmer help himself? He must truly 
help himself by studying at this question until he 
understands it, and then test the fertilizer analysis by 
the station reports, The experiment stations are 
doing excellent work both in analyzing fertilizers 
and in giving sound advice. Take this from the West 
Virginia Station: 
Of all the losses which a farmer may charge <o the use 
of low-grade fertilizers (or avoid if he will) those due to 
the use of low-grade sources of nitrogen are the worst. 
A poor soil may contain more than 3.000 pounds of nitro¬ 
gen per acre, and this amount might be doubled aud si ill 
provide little more than a hundred pounds of immediately 
available nitrogen per acre. The trouble with the nitrogen 
in a poor soil is primarily a matter of quality, not of 
quantity, and this fact should he kept clearly in mind when 
paying 15 or 20 cents a pound for nitrogen to be added 
to the soil. It would take 150 tons of one per cent goods 
per acre to provide a poor soil with as much (“total") 
nitrogen as it may already contain in the surface foot 
alone. Unless the nitrogen in the fertilizer is very much 
more quickly av lilable than that already iu the soil it is 
simply folly to buy it at any price. 
There is the point exactly. A soil is “poor” or 
fails to respond, because the plant food and chiefly 
the nitrogen in it is unavailable—much less that in 
muck or leather. When you buy a low-grade ferti¬ 
lizer and use on that soil you cannot hope to raise 
full crops because you are only adding just what the 
soil already contains. A small quantity of nitrate 
nitrogen would make a wonderful change because that 
would supply what the soil lacks. Take that potato 
TIIE PABST PECAN. Fig. 201. 
fertilizer in Maine—made by the Buffalo Company— 
the Experiment Station advises farmers who use it 
to use in addition to it 100 pounds of nitrate of soda 
per acre! Do not think we spend too much time over 
this nitrogen question. It is the most important thing 
connected with fertilizing. As a farmer you cannot 
possibly make better wages than you can in mastering 
this problem of the difference between available and 
inert nitrogen. We hope to keep at it until no intel¬ 
ligent farmer will ever buy a low-grade fertilizer or 
a pound of unavailable nitrogen. 
