Part 18

This is an investment where your principal increases and your income gets larger as the years roll by.

Why Do We Sell Orchard Units?

We can answer that in a few words.

To raise money to establish more pecan orchards.

We must have more finest grade paper shell pecans to meet the increasing demand. America demands more. When this market is supplied—which date seems generations distant—there are limitless opportunities open for export business.

The pecan is a food in demand all year around, yet the constantly increasing supply is exhausted in a few months.

No ordinary increase of plantings would meet the need. Our Co-operative Profit-Sharing Plan is the most direct, most effective solution of the problem.

The opportunity is enormous. To make right use of that opportunity requires large planning and large plantings. We have now four thousand acres of pecan trees planted and growing on our plantations—to establish these, fertilize, cultivate and care for them until bearing would involve an outlay so prodigious that it is good policy for our company to welcome the co-operation of a limited number of unit owners, assuring maximum efficiency on all our acreage at a minimum expense for planting, care, cultivation, gathering crop, marketing nuts, etc.

In one of our 3½ year old orchards, showing sturdy trunks and heavy heads. ]

Our Investors Are Found All Over The World

A 3½ YEAR OLD TREE on our plantation. Observe the massive trunk, the sturdy limbs, the great spread of nut bearing branches. ]

Far-sighted people, who, after thorough investigation, have invested in Pecan Orchard Units under our co-operative plan, are found in every section of the United States and Canada, and also in many foreign countries, such as Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, the British Isles, South Africa, India, etc.

You will find them from Sanford, Maine, on the East, to Oakland and Lompoc, California, on the West; from Miami, Florida, and El Paso, Texas, on the South, to points as far North as Alaska. In New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Atlanta and Columbus, Georgia; Pittsburgh, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Jacksonville, New Orleans and other large cities you will find those who are providing for the future by putting their money in Keystone Pecan Orchard Units.

The strongest believers in our co-operative orchard proposition are keen business people, with ability to get at the facts, who have visited the plantations themselves, and have seen for themselves our bearing pecan orchards, our nursery, our planted units, their intensive care and cultivation. On their return many have bought additional units—or recommended the investment to their friends. The progress made is so evident that it convinces all who see it.

Prospective investors and owners of orchard units are welcome any time at the plantations in order that they may see for themselves just what progress has been made and is being made. It is necessary that we shall have undisputed control of the orchard during the first five years—the period when closest cultivation is required—in order that we may make good on our guarantee and turn over to you a successful orchard at the end of that period. But we shall be glad to have you establish a bungalow or cottage on the ground at any time afterward.

A few typical letters from unit owners who have visited the plantation are found on the following pages.

Finds His 45–Acre Orchard Better Than He Expected

Sturdy main branches, resulting from our Keystone System of Pruning. ]

=Writes Prominent Manufacturer of Muskegon Heights, Mich.=

Muskegon Heights, Mich., July 15, 1920.

Keystone Pecan Company, Manheim, Pa.

Gentlemen:

Ever since 1917, when I purchased my 45–acre pecan orchard from you, I have been wanting to go to see it, and several times had all arrangements made, but unforeseen events arising suddenly in my business prevented my going until now.

Of course, I satisfied myself before buying that an investment in your pecan orchards is sound and profitable, and I received your reports from time to time showing progress, so that I knew my trees were receiving the best of care and were growing nicely, and yet naturally I wanted to see them. I am happy to say that my orchards were fully as good as reported—the thrifty, strong-trunked, heavy-headed trees are in many respects better than I expected.

Your Medium Height Pruning System has produced wonderful trees. They are developing thick, strong trunks and branches, and large, symmetrical heavy heads. Your thorough cultivation, with tractors, mules, and hoeing around the trees by hand, on every part of the plantation, keeps the soil in the best possible condition to promote growth.

The growth already made shows that your methods produce unusual results.

The foundation idea underlying all your plans seems to be service, and as a manufacturer of many years experience selling to many of the largest concerns in this and other countries, I have learned that service and the application of the Golden Rule are the foundation of all success. All businesses and all persons are measured by the service they render.

My visit to your plantations has shown me that your Company places service always foremost, and that you stand for a square deal. In cultivation and pruning and in every way the trees are treated as individuals and each tree receives individual attention. When the thirty-five hundred acres now planted will have passed through the development years, the Keystone Pecan Groves will be a place of beauty and will be a perennial source of profit to the owners of the units.