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—the queen of all nuts
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.
Quality unequalled but supply is limited
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.”