records for all sections of the United 
States. 
Therefore, by the aid of this table, 
you can, by knowing your own climate, 
decide what the chances are of the 
Pecan ripening its nuts with you. 
Another way of testing your climate 
for Pecans is this: Can you grow dent 
corn? If so, you should try some Bus- 
seron Pecans and also the Indiana. 
Since the limiting factor on ripening 
nuts is the number of warm days in 
the summer and the length of the 
growing season, there is bound to be a 
considerable area at the northern edge 
of the Pecan zone in which the trees 
will ripen their nuts some seasons while 
in other seasons they will not. But in 
any case you can be assured of a beau- 
tiful shade tree anywhere from Boston 
to Niagara Falls and southward. A 
gentleman from Westfield, N. Y., near 
Buffalo, writes: ‘“I ‘have Busseron 
Pecans that came through the winter 
of 1933-34, the coldest in 60 years.” 
Since the cost is no more than many 
other shade trees, and they are very 
beautiful trees, you are quite justified 
in planting a Pecan where the climate 
will knock you out of a half or two- 
thirds of the crops. The other half or 
third of the crops will be that much 
more than your maples or your elms 
will yield. 
Soil for the Pecan 
The Pecan is a weak feeder. It must 
have fertile soil if it is to do its best, 
fertile soil and moisture. In nature it 
is usually a native of the alluvial low- 
land, and to get good large nuts you 
must put it in a good soil and feed it; 
feed it as you would a vegetable garden. 
It will make a beautiful tree in less 
fertile locations, but it will grow more 
slowly and bear smaller nuts. The 
glorious Greenriver tree pictured above 
stands in an upland truck patch on 
good clay soil. It has benefited by the 
care of the garden in which it stands. 
After it recovers from transplanting, 
a well-fed Pecan tree will rival the 
maples in rate of growth. 
Shade for the Pasture Field 
A Pecan or other nut tree is a perfect 
shade tree for the pasture lot, and the 
animals standing under it will auto- 
matically fertilize it with their drop- 
pings. Such has been the history of 
many a nut tree with a famous bearing 
record. 
W. C. Reed & Son, of Indiana, are 
pioneer experimenters with northern 
10 
Pecans. They report a crop as follows— 
“Crop varied from twenty to fifty 
pounds per tree; think two trees born 
seventy-five pounds each. 
“Trees were planted twelve years ago 
on high clay land. 
“They lhave been cultivated regularly. 
“Were not fertilized, but were on 
good, strong land. 
“Trees are from thirty to thirty-five 
feet tall.” 
You have no overhead charge in 
pasture shade trees. It is overhead 
charge that kills so many farm profits. 
Twenty or fifty or a hundred pounds 
of Pecans per tree at a harvest would 
make your shade trees look good in 
more ways than one, and Pecan trees 
live for two or three hundred years. 
Planting Pecan trees in a meadow 
is an insurance policy. As soon as the 
trees are established it is a paid-up 
policy. That is why I planted 50 acres 
of creek bottom pasture in the Phila- 
delphia climate of Northern Virginia 
Piedmont. 
Pecan Roots 
The Pecan tree is not the nursery- 
man’s joy. It has perfectly fiendish 
tap roots. The first year the little tree 
is about the size of a straw and the 
length of a lead pencil, but the root 
is the size of a lead pencil and twice 
as long, and I don’t known whether 
the top ever catches up in bulk with 
the roots. I never saw all the roots of 
even a three-year-old Pecan tree, and 
if you had all the roots you would not 
know what in the world to do with 
them, because you would have to have 
a hole probably 5 or 6 feet deep and 
perhaps 8 or 10 feet wide. Because of 
this long root habit digging them up 
is a major surgical operation. We cut 
the tops back heavily to balance the loss 
of root, and expect to pet the trees for 
the first two seasons while they are 
getting reestablished. After that they 
will, if well fed, grow from 1% to 2% 
feet on the terminals per year, and are 
really very effective shade trees, with 
a beautiful tropical appearance. 
While I have planted acres of them 
commercially in an alluvial meadow 
pasture near the nursery, I do not 
recommend the practice to my neigh- 
bors, unless they are exceptionally situ- 
ated. What I recommend to you is one 
Busseron and one Indiana as a mini- 
mum start to pollinate each other and 
then as many more as circumstances 
warrant, so that you may be sure to 
have an abundant family supply of 
delicious, nutritious nuts. -You need 
two varieities. 
