Part 20

Practically every thoughtful man looks forward to the time when he may have a home where the winter rigors of the Northern climate shall not sap his vitality. No one need apologize for this longing—or consider it a sign of lack of vigor or backbone.

For the tendency toward establishing a home in the South is not based alone on this desire for an agreeable, equable climate. It is founded on sound economic principles.

Where Winter Does Not Consume What the Summer Produces

In the North, the winter consumes the food which the summer produces. In the fertile sections of Southern Georgia a succession of crops, properly planned, makes the whole year productive.

Vegetation is so rapid that in a few years a home is surrounded by a growth of trees, shrubbery and growing crops.

Government statistics show a surprisingly slight variation between Winter and Summer in Southern Georgia. Here there is no enervating humidity compared to that found in the Northern and Central Atlantic States.

The home of our Assistant Horticulturist—shaded by the big bearing pecan trees. ]

Here is the ideal home—“Where the sun shines bright and the meadow’s in bloom”—where good fishing and hunting abound—where the call of the “Bob White” is heard from September to March—where the outdoor life is the natural, healthful life the year round.

A plantation house of the Keystone Pecan Company on its Calhoun County Orchard Plantation. From left to right: Elam G. Hess, President of the Company; M. G. Esbenshade, Secretary and Treasurer; and Thos. F. Miller, Sales Manager. ]

Here, with the fine southern town of Albany only a short distance away, with fine roads extending roundabout in all directions, you may live on a typical plantation. While Nature, soil and sun combine to produce profitable crops on the pecan trees which have been turned over to you a thrifty orchard, you may fish, boat or swim on the beautiful Lake Marcelia—a twenty-five acre lake right on your plantation.

We expect eventually to erect a club house or hotel on the banks of the lake, where unit owners may be accommodated should they wish to spend their vacation here hunting and fishing.

When you live amid such surroundings you really live. The country all about is so attractive that many a man in the North would be glad to pay $650 or $750 for an acre on which to build a southern home. If he planted on that acre only enough pecan trees to yield an average income of $45 per year, he would have six per cent. interest from his money. One tree should yield more than $30 per year, on an average, from the tenth to the twentieth year from planting. Why be satisfied with a single tree when there is room for twenty trees and a small bungalow on your acre?

Office of the Clerk, District Court, Boulder County, Col.

Boulder, Colorado, June 26, 1919.

I have lived many years in Colorado and have been in close contact with the agricultural development of the west. I have long believed that Walnut growing in California was one big opportunity. During the past two weeks I have visited your plantation in Georgia and have travelled over it from end to end. Since that visit I am more thoroughly convinced than ever that you have the finest nut growing proposition in this country.

The wonderful way in which I found the trees growing on the ten orchard units which I had previously bought has led me to purchase more units, and I expect to buy still more later.

You have the soil, the climate and the organization to produce successful pecan groves.

Fred. W. Burger.

Investigate The Company And Its Management

Because the most conservative statement of yield from our pecan units sounds too good to be true, we have found that it was necessary to urge prospective purchasers to investigate every phase of the company.

For this reason, the men who have invested most largely are always the men most capable of getting at the real facts—and acting on their own knowledge—manufacturers, merchants, bankers, lawyers, physicians, dentists, salesmen, accountants, teachers, preachers, farmers and others of the most intelligent classes are becoming owners of orchard units because their investigation has shown:

=First.= That the Company is financially strong—a $215,000 corporation, which received its charter in 1911 from the Superior Court of Georgia. Subsequent to the incorporation, the Company purchased what its officers believed to be the finest plantation in Calhoun County for the growth and development of Paper Shell Pecans. The plantation with recent additions, all located around Albany, Georgia, totals nearly 7,400 acres of land, which has been or is to be planted to pecans. From the date of the purchase the Company has expended large sums of money annually upon the development of the property and each passing year sees a greater expenditure upon property development and permanent property improvement. Latest approved methods are sought and applied; and notwithstanding all this the Calhoun County Plantation is subject to a lien of only twenty-seven thousand dollars, the Dougherty County Plantation to only five thousand dollars, the Mitchell County Property to only ten thousand dollars. For the purpose of safeguarding the unit owners a special trustee was appointed whose duty it is to see that the company’s receipts from orchard sales are appropriated to the development of the orchards sold, the planting of new orchards and the reduction of the lien until the same shall have been extinguished entirely. This result will be achieved before the Company shall have conveyed one-half of its orchards—a unique record among modern business concerns. The Trustee plan was specially devised for the protection of Unit buyers, and we know of no Company that has devised a safer plan. It is the result of the most careful consideration given in the interest of the unit buyer. When you are safe, we are safe also.

The books of the Keystone Pecan Co. are audited quarterly by Certified Public Accountants, Vollum, Fernley & Vollum, of Philadelphia, New York and Chicago.

=Second. That the orchards are under capable supervision.= The active officers of the Company were close students of pecan growing for years previous to 1911.

Realizing the fact that the making of profits depends in part on the skill of the orchardist, the Company has employed educated, practical horticulturists who have large pecan groves of their own, where they earned reputations as orchardists that secured them highest recommendations of well known authorities. The fact that such men accepted positions with the Keystone Pecan Company is a tribute to the possibilities of these plantations.

For resident plantation managers they chose pecan men of excellent reputation, who had demonstrated exceptional ability in handling the problem in all its phases.

=Third. That the Company has the character of soil, the kind of budded trees, and the shipping facilities needed to fill the demand for better grade pecans which comes from all over America and abroad.= The immediate district in which our plantations are located is the natural home of the pecan. We have an excellent warehouse site on the Central of Georgia Railroad, at Bermuda Station, a passenger station and warehouse on the Dougherty County Plantation, and all portions of our plantations are favorably located for shipping.

=Fourth.= The Company has demonstrated also that its management is capable and efficient. Every one is interested heartily in the success of the orchards. All are men of unquestioned honor and ability; as inquiry in their home cities will prove. They are, as the following pages show, men old enough and experienced enough to capably manage the business, yet young enough to retain their business capacity and vigor for many years to come.