Part 9

In the American Nut Journal, May, 1915, we read: “LUTHER BURBANK is credited with the following statement regarding the pecan tree: ‘If I were young again I would go South and devote my life to propagating new species of the pecan. Walnut culture is the leading horticultural product in California, makes more money for us and makes it easier than anything else, and your pecan is superior to our walnut. The longevity of the pecan orchard and its immense earning power make it one of the most profitable and permanent of agricultural investments.’”

The Hardiest of All Nut Trees

The reason for this long life is that the pecan is the hardiest of all nut trees—free from all ordinary tree pests and diseases because it is of the hickory group, and the longest lived member of that group. The lack of surface moisture—the great enemy of most trees—is not a disadvantage to the pecan, for it has a remarkably long tap root which goes down so deeply into the ground that it draws moisture from the sub-soil. Since the blooming period is late in Spring, the buds are not injured by frost.

The wild pecan has been a popular nut, rivaling, because of its superior flavor, such other nuts as the walnut, chestnut, shellbark, hickory-nut, etc. This popularity was secured despite its many drawbacks—for the shell of the wild pecan is hard and the partition walls between the kernels thick and bitter. There was too little meat and too much difficulty getting it—but the experts saw in the great demand for pecans, despite these disadvantages, =the promise of rich reward for improving the pecan=.

=The seedling pecan= is the next step toward pecan perfection. Larger than the wild pecan, and thinner shelled, it equals or surpasses it in flavor, depending upon the variety of seedling under consideration. Selling at an average price of 35 to 45 cents per pound, which is double the cost of the wild pecan, it has so much more meat and it is so much more accessible, that it is always a better paying purchase for the housewife. So justly popular has the seedling pecan become that the wise dealer and the discriminating housewife will have nothing to do with the inferior, thick-shelled pecan, which is brightly tinted and polished to disguise the inferiority.

The Pecan Makes More Progress Than Other Nuts Made In Centuries

“With practically no improvement as a result of culture and breeding, but taken directly from nature, many of the wild pecans afford an exceedingly desirable product. Unconscious, and, therefore, unsystematic selection and planting of pecan seed about dooryards during a period of less than 200 years has developed varieties of such desirable quality that the pecans most successfully compete with other species, like the almond and the walnut which have been under cultivation for many centuries.”—Congressional Record for January, 1917.

The Paper Shell Pecan

Had the work of experts not gone further than establishing the improved Seedling Pecan, it would have justified all efforts—for the seedling pecan bore justifiable comparison with any other nut on the market in food value and accessibility; until =the Paper Shell Pecan was developed from budded trees=.

The Paper Shell Pecan has an air-tight shell so thin that it is easily broken in one hand by a gentle pressure. Kernel is large, easily removed, of flavor so much finer that any observing person can distinguish it from any other pecan by taste alone.

Instead of a bitter partition wall which imbeds itself in the nut when it is cracked, as in the wild pecan, the paper shell pecan has a thin, tissue-like membrane which is easily removed.

With the paper shell pecan a larger portion of the total weight of the nut is meat than with any other nut, with the possible exception of the finest almond. And this meat of the paper shell pecan contains seventy per cent. fat, while that of the almond contains but fifty-four per cent.

The paper shell pecan is the Queen of all nuts.

It has no equal from the standpoint of size, appearance, accessibility of meat, size of kernel, and fine flavor. The only disadvantage is the limited supply—for there is but a small territory in which soil conditions and climate are right. The walnut is raised in England, France, Italy and in large quantities in the three Pacific coast states, and in smaller quantities elsewhere. The paper shell pecan seems to flourish best within a forty-mile radius around Albany, in Southwest Georgia. Of the half million budded pecan trees in the world, two hundred and forty thousand, or practically half, are in this forty-mile radius. Were complete records of yield accessible, it would be seen that this half of the budded trees has produced far more than their portion of the crop.

While State Entomologist of Georgia, Mr. E. L. Worsham, wrote: “The Pecan Industry has developed beyond the point where it matters not what you or I believe. It is a success. Results are being produced of wide interest and of permanent character, and the industry in the Albany district in the hands of competent men has wonderful potentialities. The hundreds of thousands of dollars invested by shrewd business men in Commercial Pecan properties, after personal investigation, argues that the development being recorded in the Albany district is meritorious.”

The First Three Steps In Establishing Paper Shell Pecan Orchards

First, the Seedling Pecan Nut is Planted in the Nursery

This picture shows a corner of the Nursery on our Calhoun County Plantation, in which thousands of young trees have been grown. Selected seedling nuts from our bearing seedling orchard (in the background) have but recently sprouted, and are just above ground when this first picture is taken. ]

A Few Years Later in the Same Nursery Corner

One of our orchard unit owners inspecting the nurseries two years later. The vigorous, sturdy two year old trees have been budded to the standard paper shell varieties. ]

The Sturdiest Budded Trees are later Transplanted while Dormant, into the Orchard Units

Illustration at left shows one of our unit owners, Mr. A. E. Pretty, Dawson, Yukon Territory, standing at a dormant tree in recently planted units purchased by Alaska and Yukon people.

Illustration at right shows Mr. Henry E. Morton, President of the First State Savings Bank and of the Morton Mfg. Co., Muskegon Heights, Mich. (owner of 45 units on our plantation) standing at the same tree, three months later.

Both pictures made to same scale, as figures of men show. (See letter of Mr. Morton, page 50.) ]

THE 12 OZ., “GIFT BOX” of Hess Brand Paper Shell Pecans, which has been ordered and re-ordered by pleased purchasers in every section of the United States and Canada—and in many foreign countries, including Mexico, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, China, France and Great Britain. ]

Hess Brand Paper Shell Pecans

are selected for their superior quality from among the finest nuts produced anywhere in the pecan district. They are the choice of thousands of satisfied customers, everywhere, because they are the finest flavored nuts which Nature produces.

They are uniformly large in size, thin in shell and well filled with nut meat, as shown by illustration in natural colors on outside cover.