Papershell 
Some Things Pecans Might Do for You 
Pecan Trees Will Pay Your Taxes. Ten good pecan trees 
should pay as much as $100 in taxes each year, and a hun¬ 
dred should provide $1000 annually for taxes and other ex¬ 
penses. Many farms could easily utilize 50 to 100 papershell 
pecan trees in fence corners, along creek banks, about houses, 
etc., where the land would hardly be missed. 
Pecan Trees Will Repair Tenant Houses, if the ordinary farm 
tenant house is provided with ten papershell pecan trees "on 
the halves,” the owner’s half should provide enough money 
each year for house paint and repairs. 
Old Age Pensions Or Old Age Security? No elderly couple 
with 100 mature, bearing papershell pecan trees on good soil 
should ever be dependent upon relatives or charity, for an 
average annual crop of only 100 lbs. papershell pecans per 
tree at a low price of 15c per pound will pay them $1,500.00 
per year. 
Providing Annual Income. Would you like to provide for 
an income of $2,000 per year? Then 200 bearing, mature 
papershell pecan trees in good soil should do it. 
Pecan Trees Will Educate Your Children. One hundred pa¬ 
pershell pecan trees should keep a boy or girl (perhaps two 
of them) in College by providing $1,000 per year for that 
purpose throughout the life of the orchard, perhaps for 100 
years or more. 
Baby pecan orchard, 
just starling out in 
life. Over 2,000 trees 
from our nursery in 
this planting. This is 
going to be one of the 
finest pecan orchards 
in the whole country. 
Over 5,000 trees on 
our "Tested Root¬ 
stocks" in this fine 
orchard, now 3 to 
4 years old. Hun¬ 
dreds of them are 
beginning to bear. 
Good soil — good 
trees—good varie¬ 
ties—good care, is 
the formula for suc¬ 
cess. 
A 5-year old pecan 
orchard. Between 5,000 
and 10,000 trees from 
our nursery. Many of 
them are bearing. Vig¬ 
orous, husky looking 
trees, aren't they? 
This New Chemical 
Costs Us $1,200 
per Pound 
But Don’t You 
Think the Results 
are Amazing? 
Our New Scientific 
Pecan Roo^ 
Amazing Scientific Discovery 
• Just a few years ago, some scientific workers discover¬ 
ed some complicated chemical substances that possessed 
the ability to stimulate the growth of new roots on both 
the stems and roots of plants that were otherwise very 
difficult or impossible to root. 
• Workers in the U. S. Pecan Laboratory in Texas began 
a series of laboratory experiments in which they were 
able, by use of this new chemical growth-promoting sub¬ 
stance, to get 100% rooting of pecan root cuttings. With¬ 
out it they had failed completely. This was the basis of 
our pecan root treatment that we offered our customers in 
Spring of 1938. 
Improved Method of Treatment 
9 Our TESTED ROOTSTOCKS, introduced several years 
ago, marked an improvement in pecan trees. Last year 
we were the only nursery to offer trees with the new sci¬ 
entific root treatment that causes new roots to grow 
quickly and abundantly. 
• We furnished the scientific workers of the U. S. Pecan 
Laboratory with trees for a series of tests of methods of 
application and strength of doses. The illustrations show 
some results of these tests, and now we offer an improved 
and perfected treatment, the first nursery to give its cus¬ 
tomers the benefit of this new Scientific Discovery. 
We are the First to Offer This New Scientific Root Treatment. 
Our Customers iGet the Benefit. 
A mass of new roots where each 
“shot” of the new root treatment chem¬ 
ical was inserted. These treatments 
were applied in the side of the tap 
root, stimulating abundant root growth 
at each point. Photographed at the 
end of one season’s growth. 
Untreated and treated roots of two 
pecan trees, same age, transplanted 
last spring and dug at the end of the 
first season. Photograph shows amaz¬ 
ing new root growth stimulated on the 
right hand tree by root treatment. 
Left hand root had no treatment. 
Remarkable growth of new pecan roots at the 
end of the first sumnjier after transplanting 
shown on tree (right) was stimulated by our sci 
entific root treatment, 
pecan root at left. 
Compare with untreated 
Here Is What Customers Tell Us 
“Mr. Gray, I sent a man to count all the dead trees in the planting of nearly 
2,S00 obtained from you last* spring, and he reports only SIX dead in the en¬ 
tire lot.” 
"The 100 trees we bought from you last year have all done exceptionally 
well. A number of pecan experts have inspected them and all agree they are 
as fine a lot of young trees ais they have seen.” 
The Secret of Our Success 
• Once a visiting nurseryman asked if I would mind telling 
him my ''secret" for growing trees, and became offended, re¬ 
fusing to believe I was telling the truth when I told him 
that I had none. We have no secret process, but like other 
professional men we have developed our own special tech¬ 
nique. 
Excellent Growing Conditions 
• In the first place, dur splendid root system is due to both our TESTED 
.SEED pecans and the .special type of SOIL we selected for our nursery. We 
prefer to grow a tree, not with a lot of hair-like roots like a corn stalk, or 
a long tap root with a few weak laterals, but with ample good sized laterals 
that live when transplanted. 
Care at Digging 
0 Digging is carefully supervised, and after trees are dug, they are not ex¬ 
posed, init are hauled from the field in wet straw and dijiped immediately in 
MUD. They are packed to arrive with this mud still damp and the customer 
who transplants without letting this protective coating of mud dry out, knows 
Ills trees are in fine condition. 
WHAT ARE 
TESTED ROOTSTOCKS? 
• Did you know that our papershell pecan frees really are 
made up from parls of TWO different trees, united by bud- 
ding? ^ 
# SECOND, the entire 
root system, or under¬ 
ground portitjn, grew 
from a planted pecan 
nut. Some seed nuts give 
weak-growing under- 
?tocks (roots) and others 
produce rootstocks of out¬ 
standing vigor and stock¬ 
iness. 
teVAti 
Improving BOTH ENDS of the Tree 
# Over 10 years ago we decided that if we could find a bet¬ 
ter ROOTSTOCK, we could unite our papershell top to it 
and thereby produce a better tree. Why not an IMPROVED 
ROOTSTOCK on the bottom of the tree as well as an im¬ 
proved papershell top: a DOUBLE-IMPROVED tree, or one 
improved at “both ends”? 
# During more than 10 years we have been testing seed pecans from more 
than 1,000 different trees, planting them side by side. Workers from the U. S. 
Dept, of Agriculture have checked our tests a number of times. Seed nuts 
from some trees produced tall, spindly seedlings; from others came dwarfs 
and weaklings; BUT a very few, we found to produce seedlings of outstand¬ 
ing uniformity more food and moisture under the same growing conditions. 
# Results count. From more than 1.000 different seed in our plant testing 
blocks, have come our tested, selected rootstocks that enable us to offer our 
trees improved at BOTH ends. 
9 FIRST, ilie “lop” that 
bears the papershell pe¬ 
cans, that portirn of the 
tree alxjve the ground, 
grew from a single bud 
taken from a tree that 
bore papershell pecans; 
so it also bears the same 
kind. 
Young Papershell Pecan Orchard 
Only 8 years old 
L Trees of Ihe Moore variety averaged 
over 30 lbs. per free 7lh year . 
PRACTICING WHAT I PREACH 
Profitable Sandy Land Pecan Orchard 
MORE PROFITABLE THAN FIELD CROPS 
Young Orchard 
The Future Owners 
Young Orchard 
I am developing a fine pecan orchard on the Color.Tdo River that T am expecting to produce a 
very material income to assist in e<lucating our children, to provide an income after I retire from 
active business and finally, to l)e left to onr children as a dependable source of income after Mrs. 
Gray and I have passed on. 
O We set a young orchard, now beginning to bear in its 5th year that we 
are hoping will beal the above record. Our formula for a profilable pecan 
orchard is GOOD SOIL, GOOD TREES, GOOD VARIETIES, GOOD 
MANAGEMENT. 
Double (or More) the Value of Your Farm 
Pecan Orchards Increase Land Values 
1 1 hac been the foundation of manv fortunes. Only two generations ago our grand- 
^hers wereUble to bu^^^ and other pecan states for 25c to $100 per acre 
,nd all that they had to do to become wealthy was to liold on to it for a few years until it became worth 
iOO to $200 and even more per acre. _ 
I When a man with land worth $25 or $50 or even $100 per acre can do something to >t worth $500 
acre, surely the proposition is worth serious consideration, and there is a lot of land today on which 
very thing is possible. 
Whal is Pecan Land Worth? 
vv xiai la 
lome say $1 000 per acre; others more; others less. An interesting question, but one that can hardly 
nswered corre^Iy more than. “What is an acre of cotton land worth?” We have pictured here an 
• An acre of the above trees in a sandy land orchard near Arlington makes more 
money, says the owner, than if the acre would produce 3 bales of cotton. What do 
you think they will do in a few more years, for you can see they are now young 
trees? A prominent grower says that his books show that for a period of years on 
rich bottom land, if he had had only one pecan tree per acre he would have made 
more money from pecans than he received for cotton. 
• THOMAS BLACK. A very fine walnut with comparatively thin shell. 
cracks easily, and the light-colored kernel is easily extracted in quarters, 
with quite a few halves. Delicious, old-time flavor. Everybody knows 
about the beauty and long life of walnut trees. Walnut trees have 
also been highly prized for their W(kh1. Quite a number of varieties 
of black walnut have been tried in our territory, but the Thomas has 
been a heavy producer and lias done better than the others that we 
have seen tried. Fine shade trees. 
WILSON WONDER ENGLISH. Produces enormous walnuts. Trees bear 
young and are good producers. Recommended about homes, hut not 
for commercial planting in our territory. We have had a number of 
them growing here at Arlington for several years, but very few good 
nuts have been produced. Many people, however, like to have an 
“English Walnut” tree, and it seems to be all right for shade purposes. 
INVESTING IN PECAN LAND 
0 We believe that good pecan land constitutes one of the safest and most attractive real estate invest¬ 
ments. It has been selling much below its actual value, and it has not only paid good dividends, but is 
certain to increase in value as the pecan industry develops and people come to appreciate the value of 
FIRST-CLASS pecan land. 
0 We know of purchases of this sort that have paid from 12% to 20% annual return during the depression 
years and that are now worth perhaps two or more times their purchase price. Strange as it may seem, it 
lias always been true that real, first-class agricultural land of any sort often can be bought for very little 
more per acre than mediocre land. As long as this is true with pecan land, we think that it one of the 
safest and soundest investments. 
We are Agents for First-Class Pecan Land 
® For the benefit of our customers and for those who would like to invest after assuring themselves they 
are not making any mistake in the adaptability of the soil for commercial pecan growing, we have made a 
business of locating and listing TESTED pecan properties, v/here we have already investigated and tested 
the soil and can certify to its adaptability to pecans. 
$150 worth of pecans per acre per year for three consecutive years 
. ^ T*.va« from which the owner sold $150 worth of pecans per acre 
far‘’for\hV«%onsecutivr'years. Wh^a't is this land worth today? Not many years ago, it had a market 
of about $15 to $30 per acre. 
Increase Value of Waste Places 
, , , , Knd where cron growing is hazardous, upon whicli pecan orchards 
bousands of farms have overflow 1 q,, jiid, banks, small bends in the creek, and other 
be developed with „f?t‘b^r pecan crops. In recent bad crop years, the taxes on many 
-ely waste areas that would grow profitable pecan crop standing in a field near the Oklaho¬ 
ma Zu me'! “My re^mtims'wTLnd children always counted on the pecans from that tree to buy th^ 
•s supply of clothing.” Economics" 
first-class acre of pecans -m Produce more_^pounds^^of ““duce mo're‘’?grn cl 
s of seed cotton. An a^ of i h j, papershell pecans that would be equal in total food value 
M bs’’ofbeel ■ Whic°h mo.eyf And a lot of good bottom land can be used 
“nre ^tle and at the same time grow pecans m the tree-tops. 
Would you like a copy of my leaflet, "HOW TO PLAN A MOD¬ 
ERN PECAN ORCHARD"? Please send a 3c stamp to pay mail¬ 
ing cost. 
Our fruit catalog, in color, is[ free for the asking. 
The Basis Upon Which We Solicit Business 
Quality in a nursery tree should be measured by actual performance 
— l>y successful transplanting, rapid growth, years of profitable pro- 
V^Udlliy fiuction etc Our first aim is to grow the finest and best tree that 
science and skill can produce. Our tested rootstocks, used exclusively in our nur¬ 
sery, are the result of about 10 years of scientific experiments, resulting m Good 
blood at both ends of the tree.” 
Our interest in the welfare of our customers extends further than the 
actual sale of trees. We consider ourselves obligated to render every 
oervice reasonable assistance that may help develop beautiful and profitable 
pecan orchards. Often we are able to render a service worth more to the customer than 
he actually paid us for trees. This does not increase the price of our trees, but adds 
greatly to their value to our customers. 
We believe in a “square deal,” where both the buyer and seller are 
better off because of the transaction. Dishonesty and misrepresentation 
I-v !• drive off customers who sooner or later learn the truth. We are in 
Dealing business to stay and deal with our customers so that they remain 
our friends and recommend us to others. .Most of our business is with customers 
whom our friends have sent to us. 
Price means very little unless the customer is satisfied as to quality 
Prir#» and service, and is assumed that he is getting most for his money. 
Our list of satisfied customers is ample proof of the fact that we 
give our customers as much or more for each dollar as they can get anywhere. 
Fair 
mi' 
We made thorough soil tests before our client purchased this tract of land for a 3,000 
tree pecan orchard. We not only test soils prior to purchase, but we also determine the 
most profitable pecan soils on farms and ranches already owned by prospective orchardists. 
Locating Pecan Land for Purchasers 
0 We have had clients write us that they would like to consider the purchase of pecan land in certain 
districts, and we have been able to locate satisfactory tracts in quite a number of instances. If you would 
like to know what is available in any of our territory, write us about what you would like to have and 
perhaps we can assist you just as we have a number of others. This is one of the regular services that we 
render. Write us your wants. 
O. S. GRAY PECAN NURSERY' 
ARLINGTON, TEXAS 
