174 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ago. Who has not heard some old wise¬ 
acre remark as he pityingly watched an 
enthusiast planting pecan trees; “He’ll 
never live long enough to see them fruit!’’ 
Thousands of trees set less than seven 
years ago have put a quietus on this old 
knocker, and there is scarcely a communi¬ 
ty where pecan planting has been in prog¬ 
ress seven years in which he has not been 
discredited. There was reason in his re¬ 
marks so long as seedlings were planted, 
as few of these fruit under fifteen years 
of age, besides there are many such trees 
twice as old which have yet to show their 
first crop of nuts. To have asserted that 
an eight year old tree produced two bush¬ 
els of pecans in one season, would have 
relegated the claimant to a life member¬ 
ship in the Annanias Club, at so recent 
a date, as four years ago. The process of 
grafting alone induces early fruitage, but 
when scions are selected from choice trees 
having a tendency to prolificness and ear¬ 
ly fruitage, these characteristics are em¬ 
phasized in the resulting trees, thus mak¬ 
ing it certain that such trees will, un¬ 
der favorable conditions, fruit early in 
life, and abundantly. 
It is conceded that there are yet many 
problems to be solved. This is also true 
of the peach-grower, the apple-grower, 
the citrus-grower, and others; else there 
would be little occasion for the annual 
meetings of various horticultural organ¬ 
izations. For a time it was supposed the 
pecan growers were especially favored in 
having to deal with a tree free from ene¬ 
mies and diseases of all kinds; it being 
only necessary to set the trees and return 
for the harvest. A more intimate ac¬ 
quaintance with such troubles as borers, 
web-worms, case-bearers, bud-worms, 
winter-killing, scab, rosette have taken 
away the complacent feeling of immunity, 
and undoubtedly troubles that we know 
not of will require our respect in the fu¬ 
ture. Fortunately our troubles of this 
nature are not nearly so formidable as 
those which confront apple, peach or or¬ 
ange growers, and so long as these insist 
on supplying the world with peaches, ap¬ 
ples and oranges in spite of difficulties, let 
the pecan growers take courage. Pecan 
culture has reached its present status 
largely through the efforts of the National 
Nut Growers’ Association, our parent or¬ 
ganization. The efforts and progress of 
this association will doubtless be dwelt 
upon in a paper at this session. We are 
safe in assuming that the essentials of 
successful pecan culture are sufficiently 
clear to warrant the present activity in 
this new field of endeavor. Still there is 
enough diversity of opinion regarding 
many phases of pecan growing to demand 
our serious consideration along with the 
unsolved problems. 
I can but touch on a few lines of ac¬ 
tion with slight suggestions that should 
be taken up for our benefit. 
The one of greatest importance is to 
determine what varieties are adapted to 
a given soil, locality, climate. Real infor¬ 
mation in this particular is quite limited, 
and only in a general way is it known 
that certain kinds have been apparently 
successful in a given locality. We do 
know that varieties which fail at one place 
succeed at another. Some varieties even 
do better than in the place where they 
originated. Because of these facts er¬ 
roneous estimates have been made of va- 
