1908. 
847 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
SUCCESSFUL PECAN GROWING. 
Its Four Great Essentials. 
The four great essentials to successful pecan grow¬ 
ing are, first, the right varieties; second, good trees 
bought from an honest man; third, planting on good 
soil, and fourth, giving the proper cultivation and 
fertilization. T he first I treated in a former article. 
After over 30 years’ experience in pecan growing the 
writer has come to the conclusion that the best 
varieties for commercial growing are Stuart, Money¬ 
maker, Van Deman, and Pabst. However, I wish 
to state just here that there is a new variety lately 
introduced, of which I have high hopes, and that is 
Success. I am budding very heavily of it in my own 
grove, and expect great things of it. It is the only 
one of the new varieties of which I expect very 
much, though I am testing them all. On the second 
head, good trees bought from an honest man, I wish 
to say a good deal, and make myself very plain, for 
there are more rascals in this pecan tree business 
than in almost any other calling, and millions of 
worthless pecan trees have been sold for fine ones. 
All this could have been prevented by a little care 
and investigation on the part of the purchaser. I 
cannot emphasize too strongly the necessity of thor¬ 
ough investigation before buying pecan trees. Be¬ 
fore buying find out through your State horticulturist, 
the director of your experiment station, and through 
the reliable horticultural press who the honest deal¬ 
ers are, and do not believe that every man who comes 
along the big road is all right. In the last 15 years 
I have run down dozens of these rascals. One man 
came right under my nose here in Madison Parish, 
digging pignut trees from the swamps, and selling 
them at a dollar apiece. The pignut is absolutely 
valueless; not even a self-respecting hog ever eats 
one. This man had a stack of orders nearly a foot 
high, which he was filling with these pignut trees. 
He had got them from every part of the United 
States. He claimed that the trees would bear in four 
years; all of the pecans would be monstrously big, 
and that in eight years a dozen trees would make 
anybody's fortune. I advertised him so thoroughly 
that it was no longer possible for him to do busi¬ 
ness. He threatened to kill me and to sue me, but 
did not have the nerve to do either. Many a time 
has my life been threatened by some one of these 
rascals, whom I have put out of business, but as yet 
I am sound and well. Still, there are several honest 
men in the pecan tree 
business, but it behooves 
the purchaser to take 
pains to find out who 
they are. 
The third head is the 
right kind of soil to 
plant the pecan on. 
Prof. Burnett, the Presi¬ 
dent of the National 
Nut Growers’ Associa¬ 
tion, told me last Win¬ 
ter that at one of the 
meetings of his Asso¬ 
ciation several members 
had presented a motion 
making it a finable of- 
sense for any one to 
start the question of 
soils suited for pecan 
growing, the arguments 
had been so heated upon 
this matter. Of course 
such a motion was hope¬ 
lessly lost in so enlight¬ 
ened a body. Prof. Bur¬ 
nett and Prof. Van De¬ 
man are strongly in 
favor of the alluvial 
soils, or the river lands 
where the pecan is na¬ 
turally at home, and it 
is my belief they will 
always do best there; 
yet I do not go so far 
as some, and claim that 
growth in the early years than the nuts. Under this 
head I wish to say a few words about the right dis¬ 
tance apart to plant the trees. The man who is ad¬ 
vising to plant them 20 feet apart is thinking more 
about his own pockets than his customer’s good. 
Planted so close they make nothing but leaves and 
poles. They furnish enough pollen when a mile 
apart. Of course the richness of the soil will de¬ 
cide very largely the distance to plant. Seventy feet 
apart on the rich river bottoms and 50 feet apart on 
poor hill lands is a good distance, but where one is 
able it is well to put in fillers, which can be cut out 
NEW SUMMER-FRUITING STRAWBERRY, NATURAL 
SIZE. Fig. 289. See Ruralisms, Page 650. 
as the trees get large. There is no better pecan in 
the world to use as a filler than Moneymaker, for it 
bears very heavily on young trees. 
And now as to cultivation and fertilization, a 
most important thing to be considered. The man who 
tells you you can plant a pecan orchard, and let it 
shift for itself is simply deceiving you. Sometimes 
a tree can be planted near the house in a rich spot, 
and it will make a splendid tree without any culti¬ 
vation, but you cannot use a whole grove that way, 
or it will prove a bitter failure. The Chas. A. Green 
pecan tree which stands at the corner of our house, 
and which has had the enviable record of bearing 
COTTON GROWING IN A PECAN ORCHARD—VAN DEMAN PICKING. Fig. 
this is the only soil they will do well on. I remem¬ 
ber seeing some very fine trees on the hills around 
Port Gibson and Bovina, Miss., and there is a tree 
in the suburbs of Vicksburg, the nuts from which 
have annually kept one man drunk for six months 
out of 12 for the last 20 years. A very unenviable 
record, we must admit. I am rather inclined to 
believe that it is almost as much a matter of care 
and cultivation as it is a matter of soil. My own 
giove is planted on the rich sandy loams of the 
Mississippi Valley, the finest lands in the world. 
Here the trees make a magnificent growth, but are a 
little slower in coming into bearing than in the hills, 
but as a tree must always have size before it begins 
to bear enough nuts to pay, I would rather have the 
$80 worth of pecans in one season, has never had 
much cultivation, but it has mines of fertility beneath 
it to draw on which have been accumulating for 
nearly a hundred years. It has stood in this spot 
only 30 years, yet it is over 80 feet tall and has a 
spread of over 80 feet, and a diameter of over nine 
feet 15 inches above ground. But the big orchard 
must have regular and thorough cultivation, or it will 
prove a failure. My grove, which is now in its 
twenty-fifth year, is still plowed broadcast at least 
once a year, and as much oftener as I can get the 
labor, money and teams to do it. With a young 
orchard it is best to plant it in some hoed crop. 
Cotton is the best thing to plant in the grove, for 
one always attends to his cotton, no matter what else 
he neglects. I planted my grove for 20 years in cot¬ 
ton, and both crops did well. Now the trees are too 
large to plant in cotton any longer. I have a very 
good picture of Prof. Van Deman picking cotton in 
my pecan grove taken six years ago, Fig. 290. It is 
needless to say he only picked while the picture was 
being taken; after that he jumped his job. And right 
here I must caution the reader about planting pecan 
trees in an enclosure where stock run, for they will 
almost be sure to be ruined, but this caution applies 
also to other trees besides pecans. Be careful not to 
let fire get into grass in your grove. Many fine 
trees have gone to ruin that road. Anything that 
will serve to fertilize corn or cotton or oats will do 
the same for pecan trees, but be sure you do not get 
it too near the roots. I never believe in putting any¬ 
thing but rich mellow soil in the hole with the trees. 
Mississippi. sam h. james. 
CHANCES FOR GOOD FARMERS. 
What is the matter with the average farmer, and 
why is it that year after year he goes on working 
his acres so much more with his hands than with 
his head? I am neither a farmer nor the son of a 
farmer, but no calling in the world, aside from my 
own, interests me more. For a long time I have 
read your paper from the title to the final advertise¬ 
ment on the last page, and I maintain that any farmer 
possessing brains can make a success if he has access 
to no other information whatever than is contained 
in The R. N.-Y. What I wish to ask is why in the 
world our farmers are not profiting by the superior 
agricultural literature which is available to them for 
a mere pittance? I live in one of the most favored 
gardening and farming sections of New York. Prob¬ 
ably there are more successful farmers here in pro¬ 
portion to the population than in any other part of the 
State, and yet one ne^d only drive through the rural 
districts to tell who are the prosperous ones and who 
the plodders—the men who year after year never 
know when they harvest a crop whether it has paid 
them for their outlay, or whether a cow or any other 
farm animal has paid for maintenance during the 12 
months. A friend of mine has upwards of a hun¬ 
dred acres of land, splendid soil, admirably located 
and bought at a great bargain. He bought the place 
for a Summer home, but has conceived the idea that 
he would like to keep it, add more acres and 
carry on a dairy farm while gradually working the 
whole place into fruit, for which it is splendidly 
adapted. If he could 
find a man, preferably 
young, with honesty, 
brains, ambition and 
ability, he would give 
him a chance to become 
a partner in this place. 
That is, the present 
owner doesn’t care 
whether such a man has 
money capital or not, if 
he has the other quali¬ 
ties. He will be given a 
chance to earn a half 
interest in this place, at 
the cost price, from the 
place itself, be given 
ample time to do it and 
be furnished with the 
necessary capital to work 
with while he is doing 
it. This would seem to 
be a sufficiently generous 
proposition to appeal to 
a first-class man. Un¬ 
doubtedly it would in¬ 
terest the other class, 
but my friend doesn’t 
want a partner of that 
kind even if his services 
are free. 
Now, my friend is not 
looking for a prodigy. 
All he would ask is 
the kind of a man 
who would thought¬ 
fully read a paper like The R. N.-Y., be interested 
in it and be prepared to act upon whatever valuable 
suggestions might be contained therein. In other 
words, he wants a man who can farm with his gray 
matter, who can adapt some of the first principles of 
business to the farm. Are there any such men avail¬ 
able? The older ones are probably well located now, 
but are there young men of energy and ambition 
fitted for places like that? One would naturally 
think that there were, but considerable investigation 
around here has failed to reveal them. All of which 
leads a business man to the reluctant conclusion that 
our farmers and farmers’ sons are failing to reap 
the full benefit of the splendid agricultural educa¬ 
tional advantages and literature which you publishers, 
the State and the general government are giving them 
at such ridiculously small cost. a. b. C. 
Western New York. 
290. 
