IOO 
TREES AS GOOD CITIZENS 
time. Prices for cotton, corn and other staples were low 
and the demand light. During this period of depression, 
the tenant-farmer found financial salvation in the harvest 
from 73 Pecan trees clustered about the residential build¬ 
ings of the farm and extending in lines on both sides of his 
private entrance and along the public highway in front of 
the plantation. These trees had just come into bearing, 
and from their crop the tenant netted nearly eight hundred 
dollars, practically a third more than the amount of 
his rent. 
In Portland, Oregon, in 1907, a resident planted eight 
seedling Persian (English) Walnut trees along the street in 
front of his residence. From these trees each year, in ad¬ 
dition to having all the nuts needed for home consumption 
and dividing with the boys of the neighborhood on their 
own terms, he now obtains from nuts which he sells 
enough revenue to go a long way toward covering his taxes. 
A pioneer Pecan planter and one of the best known 
growers in Florida, had an experience which is typical of 
that of many who are brave enough to weather the jests of 
the neighborhood. In the fall of 1893, he ordered 100 Pecan 
trees from nurseries in Georgia and Louisiana. His place was 
then largely planted to Orange trees but he planned to set 
the Pecan trees along the driveway and about the buildings. 
The trees arrived at the railroad station, and were still 
in the freight house when the famous freeze of 1894 
arrived with its temperature of IS°F., killing the citrus 
trees and financially ruining many hundreds of people. 
Most of his neighbors left the community, but the planter 
removed the dead Orange trees and put the Pecans in their 
places. In later years he ordered more trees and put them 
out, too. 
The few straggling neighbors who hung on turned to 
cotton, corn, cattle, etc., the “etc.” referring largely to 
