THE PECAN TREE.

BY DR. CHARLES MOHR, OF ALABAMA.

Among the trees of the forest region of Eastern North America the pecan tree recommends itself above all others to the attention of the fruit-grower, and particularly to the horticulturist of the Mississippi Valley, its range being largely determined by the course of the Mississippi river and its larger tributaries east and west. With every year its cultivation is attracting more attention in the Southern States, by the constantly increasing demand for its nuts, not only to supply home markets, but as an article of export. Wherever the thin-shelled varieties, with their plump-sweet kernel of unsurpassed richness, find their way, they take the first rank among all others of similar kind. The high prices obtained of late years offer better inducements for the propagation of these better varieties, and tend generally to the future preservation of the natural groves.

It is needless to dwell on the botanical character of the Carya oliviaformis, as it is called by the botanists. It is found described in almost every descriptive botany of the country. It shall only be mentioned that among its congeners, the hickories, it is distinguished by its elongated fruit, tapering at both ends, with a cylindrical, smooth nut with a thin shell, separating easily from the deeply-lobed seed.

The pecan tree prefers, naturally, the cool, damp bottom lands of a deep, rich soil, not subject to long-continued overflows, or constantly wet. The area of its distribution follows, in the mean, the course of the Mississippi river, with an extent largely prevailing in a southwestern direction. Its boundaries, within the United States, have been accurately ascertained, in the course of the investigations of the forest growth of our country, in connection with the tenth census.

Starting from its southern extremity in the United States, on the Rio Grande near Loredo, under the 28° of latitude, its western boundary follows, in Texas, nearly the 100 meridian; with an eastern trend it traverses the center of the Indian Territory, follows the eastern border of Kansas, and reaches, with a strong deflection at the 97° of longitude, its most northern limit on the Mississippi river, near the 42° of latitude, embracing Southern Iowa, Southeastern Kansas, almost the whole of Missouri, all of Arkansas, the eastern half of Indian Territory, the larger part of Texas, and of Louisiana, above the low alluvial plain in the eastern, in the low-grass savannas and drift hills in the western, part of that State. East of the Mississippi its area is confined to the bottom of that river in the northern part of Illinois, and, stretching through the lower portion as far east as the meridian of Louisville, Kentucky, it embraces the lower basin of the Wabash river, of the White river, and the bottom of the Ohio river. Scarce in the northern part of Kentucky, it is abundant in the lower Green River Valley, and that of the Cumberland, to the lower basin of the Tennessee river.

In the State of Mississippi it is confined to the lands of the Yazoo and Mississippi delta. Beyond the limits of the United States the tree extends into Northeastern Mexico. Prof. Buckley found it seventy-five miles west of the Rio Grande, at Lampasas Springs, in Mexico.

East of the Mississippi bottom the pecan tree is not found in the Southern States. As indicated by the measurements recorded by Prof. Ridgeway, in his account of the lower Wabash region, it appears to arrive there at its best development. There it takes the first place amongst the largest of timber trees. Several individuals standing within sight, were, by actual measurement, found one hundred and seventy-five feet in height by a circumference of fifteen feet, the trunk clear of limbs to a length of seventy-five feet. Farther south, in the forests of the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, it does not attain such dimensions; trees exceeding three feet in diameter were scarcely observed. Beyond the Brazos river, in Texas, in the dry atmosphere of the West, it is of lower, more sturdy growth. Its massive trunk, with an average diameter of three feet, spreads horizontally its mighty limbs at a distance from fifteen to twenty feet above the ground, and covering by its shade an area from eighty to one hundred feet in diameter. In regard to the quality of its fruit, it reaches, in the South, to far greater perfection than throughout the Northern range, and consequently the Southern nuts are more highly valued.

The nut of Western Texas is of a fine quality, and the crop of the native pecan groves grows, with every year, more in importance as one of the valuable productions of the soil. It can be considered as almost never-failing. The ease with which it is gathered, handled and disposed of, its resistance to external influences and to decay, render it the most remunerative of all the fruit crops of that country. Keeping its richness and sweetness for a longer time unimpaired than any other of the oleaginous seeds, the pecan nut is valued as one of the most desirable among all the dessert nuts.

Full cause for regret have those who, in their hasty greed for gain, sacrificed, at the beginning of their settlements, their pecan groves to King Cotton. They find themselves deprived of a constantly increasing source of income, which requires no expense of time and means, and their posterity of an inheritance to have benefited coming generations. The traffic in pecan nuts forms quite an interesting item in the trade of Western Texas. In the cities of Austin and San Antonio, during the fall, wagon-load after wagonload, hauled for hundreds of miles, can be seen to arrive. On my inquiries among the principal merchants in San Antonio, the most important center of that trade, I found that, in the season of 1880, 1,250,000 pounds were re ceived at that place alone. The price paid by the wagon-load varied from five to six cents per pound.

To the cultivation of this tree has, so far, scarcely any attention been paid in Texas. In Louisiana, throughout the so-called Mississippi coast, the Opelousas and Atchafalaya region and that of the Bayou Teche, it succeeds exceedingly well and produces fruit unsurpassed in quality. The early French

settlers planted the tree around their habitations, and avenues of magnificence, of the age of many scores of years, are found, bearing testimony to the long duration of the productive stage of its life.

In the lighter soils of the coast region of the Eastern Gulf States, across to the Atlantic slope, its cultivation, wherever undertaken, with proper care and under proper conditions of soil, has proved a success. In South Carolina Prof. Buckley observed large trees on the plantations of the Santee river, planted by the Huguenots from seed brought from Louisiana. Mr. Berckmans states that the tree succeeds well in Georgia, near Augusta. In the coast plain of Alabama and Mississippi the pecan is found to grow well, and by repeated application of the proper fertilizers, to produce nuts of very fine quality. In that region all the lands of a good surface drainage with a deep clay subsoil retention of moisture, such as is favorable to the growth of the live oak, loblolly pine, Cuba pine, and covered with the inkberry bush (Ilexglabra), can be considered as well adapted to its cultivation. Many thousands of acres of land of that description can be obtained at low prices, contiguous to rairoad lines, which, covered with pecan trees, can be made to yield a revenue which can not fail to place them among the more valuable lands in these States. In the undertaking of such an enterprise one has only to keep in its extent the resources in sight required to provide his trees with the needed supply of plant food. It can not be too strongly stated that only by the liberal application of fertilizers he can meet with success in a soil naturally deficient in the needed elements of nutrition. Failing in this custom, the trees will remain of stunted growth, and either entirely barren or produce a worthless, thick-shelled and badly filled nut. In soil as indicated, sufficiently manured and under the observation of due care in transplanting, there can be no failure. The success achieved of late years in Mobile county has given great encouragement to the cultivation of the pecan tree; groves of several hundred trees have been started and many are following the same example. The nuts are planted in the fall in drills, well filled with rotten stable manure, the plants thinned out in the course of the following season, during which they grow to the height of eight or ten inches. Between the second and third year the seedlings are transplanted to the grove. After the third year the transfer is connected with great risk to the life of the young tree. The fall season after the first good frost is considered as the best time for transplanting. The trees are placed at a distance from thirty-five to forty feet. Holes are dug about three feet in diameter and one and a half feet deep. The ground is thoroughly mixed with an abundance of a compost of rotten stable manure, fine bone dust and potash. Many clip the long tap root slightly to induce the production of laterals. The very few rootlets of the tap root must be prevented from drying up, and consequently the transfer from the nursery to the grove has to be effected with as little delay as possible, and best during damp weather.

Under these precautions scarcely any loss of plants, in transplanting, will be incurred, and during the winter months the tree has ample time to es

tablish itself firmly in the well prepared and enriched soil. The young tree makes a rapid growth, and will, by repeated manuring, with the advent of each succeeding spring, bear after the sixth or seventh year of its transplanting. In 1873, I planted in my garden trees not quite three years old; they began to bear six years after, and this season their branchlets were bending under the heavy clusters of fruit of fine quality. They measure from twenty-eight to thirty-two inches in circumference, and are over fifty feet high. To show how quickly this tree responds, in the quality and quantity of its crop, to the application of fertilizing agents, I will state that the season before last, when the manuring of the trees was neglected, the crop was an entire failure; the largest part of the nuts were badly filled or entirely empty; whereas, in the present season, under a generous supply of the compost mentioned, the fruit was abundant and the nuts excellent. With the fifteenth year the tree begins to yield profitable returns. The following instance will serve as an illustration of this fact. A tree, planted in my immediate neighborhood from the seed in October, 1867, yielded, this fall, two and one-half bushels of nuts, which were of a high grade, and sold at the best market price throughout, at twenty cents per pound, to a dealer. This is a return of thirty dollars from one tree. This tree I found to measure sixty inches in circumference, and sixty-five feet in height. Mr. Vail, one of our principal dealers, who is doing his best to encourage the cultivation of the pecan tree in the vicinity of Mobile, paid, this winter, $125 for the product of five trees of the same age, at the average price of eighteen cents per pound for the nuts. They were of the fine, thin-shelled kind, of good size and fine flavor. The demand for such qualities is large, and hundreds of barrels would have found a ready market at the same rates, to meet the inquiries. Isolated as these instances might appear, they can not fail to serve as a proof of the profit to be derived from the cultivation of the pecan tree, and its importance as a resource of the low-priced lands along the Gulf shore in that section.

Among the insects injurious to the pecan tree only the tent caterpillar has so far been observed, which seems to infest it before all others; pains must be taken for its destruction as soon as it shows itself.

The attempts to raise the pecan, with any degree of success, on the rolling, sandy pinelands have all resulted in failure. The want of retentiveness of their thirsty, silicious soil renders the application of fertilizers of no benefit. It fails, also, in soils with a rocky substratum, impeding the deeply penetrating tap-root in its growth.

This tree varies greatly in the size and quality of its fruit. These variations are produced by different conditions of climate and soil, but seem principally to depend on the amount of nutritive elements of the soil. The way for the improvement of the nut is chiefly to be found in the liberal application of the proper fertilizing agents already indicated. The propagation of the best varieties is most easily effected through the seeds, whose offspring remains true to its kind, if properly treated. The experiments in grafting have not led to

results encouraging the propagation of improved kinds. I have no knowledge of instances proving the budding or grafting of older trees a success. The grafting of stocks of young trees offers no diffculties, but offers no advantages; the seedling being of a more rapid growth, and not remaining constant in its character, bears its fruit as soon, if not sooner, than the graft. Mr. Delehamps, a fruit-grower of Mobile county, informs me that, nine years ago, he grafted scions of the pecan tree upon some young stalks of the Mockernut hickory, Carya tomentosa, some at the collar, others two to three feet above the ground; several of these trees are now twenty feet high, blossomed last year, and are expected to bear fruit this coming season.

THE SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION OF NEW FRUITS.

BY DR. J. STAYMAN, OF KANSAS.

As this Society is composed of persons living over a very wide range of country and a diversified climate, it would appear that the subject of this paper should be the production of fruits adapted to general cultivation, or at least to cover the districts represented.

If this is the case, we fear some of you will be very much disappointed, for there are very few, if any, such fruits, as they are not within the ability of man or the effort of nature to produce. Therefore, all we expect to do is to give what we believe to be the best methods to approximate these results. There is not, and can not be, a universal variety, any more than there can be a universal panacea. It is not nature's method-she produces variety. We have the hills and dales, the groves and the prairies, the cold North, the temperate East, and the mild and balmy South, the deserts of the West, the Italy of the Pacific, with the blizzards of the Northwest and the siroccos of the Southwest. She has furnished us with many species and numerous varieties of fruits growing wild over these districts: it is our province to cultivate, improve and make use of them. There are some varieties of these wild species that will not succeed, where others of the same species do. In fact the same species will not always succeed within its own geographical boundary. Some species and varieties have a very limited range, while others have not. But every plant, vegetable and fruit must have a certain amount of heat, light and moisture to fully develop and bring it to perfection, and if restrained in these requisitions it will become debilitated and diseased or of deficient quality. And if it were not for the vicissitudes of climate, every plant would succeed wherever these conditions were found; but as it is, they will succeed in different locations.

The production of new fruits is no difficult problem, as all of you understand it; neither is it difficult to produce those of excellent quality, as that