The Pecan and its Culture

by H. Harold Hume

In gathering the crop, the product of each individual tree, in the case of heavy-bearing seedlings, or of each group of trees of a single variety of grafted trees, should be kept in a single pile or lot. It will not do to mix nuts of different sizes, shapes and colors, if the best price is to be hoped for.

Curing. As soon as removed from the trees the nuts should be carried to the curing house. This house should be absolutely rat-proof. Here they are to be picked from the hulls, the unopened burrs being placed apart by themselves. If they open later, well and good; some good nuts may be found among them, but usually they are inferior and should be kept strictly apart from the other portion of the crop. The cost of removing a hundred pounds of nuts from the hulls is about fifty cents.

As soon as the nuts have been separated from the hulls, they should be spread out in shallow trays for curing. These trays should be two and one-half or three feet wide and four or five inches deep. The bottoms are best covered with wire netting with meshes about one-half inch square. They may be arranged around the walls of the curing room, one tier above another. The room should be provided with good ventilation so as to give a free circulation of air. In the trays the nuts may be placed two or three layers deep; if placed too deep there is danger of their moulding. They should be turned over from time to time, and, under average conditions, two weeks will be sufficient to cure them thoroughly.

Grading. Before packing for market, the nuts should be carefully graded. Too much attention cannot be given to this detail. Rigid grading pays—it pays handsomely, and the more abundant the supply, the better it pays.

It will not do to mix together nuts of all sizes, shapes, and colors—some small, some large, some pointed, some blunt, some dark, some light, some streaked, and then expect to get the full value of the crop. It cannot be done with a good grade of pecans.

Perhaps in no kind of fruit which is placed on the market can a more nearly absolutely uniform grade be made (see Frontispiece). The variety should be the basis of the grade. In gathering the crop, each variety should be put by itself as it is gathered. In most varieties the size is quite uniform, and little else need be done; but if there is any considerable variation in size, the small ones should be removed from the first grade of nuts.

Polishing and staining should not be done. It is always best to let each variety retain its own individual marks and characteristics. These are a part of the market quality of the variety and should, by all means, be retained. Mixed lots of seedling nuts may be polished to render them more uniform, but the staining is an abomination, though some people would rather have it, not knowing, perhaps, what a pecan looks like without it.

Shipping Packages. The package should be strong and light, and should afford ample protection to the product. We have known pecans to be shipped by mail, freight or express, in bags, and losses have occurred. Barrels for larger shipments, and wooden boxes for smaller ones are best, and afford the necessary protection. Gift packages, holding ten or twenty pounds or even more, should be made of half inch stuff at least, with ends three-quarters or one inch thick. Grocery boxes may be cut up, planed off, and made over. In all cases the packages should be neat and clean, and in perfect keeping with the contents. The name and address of the grower, the name of the variety, and the number of pounds should be neatly stamped on the outside.

Marketing. As it is at present, so will it be for many years to come, strictly first-class pecans will be handled almost entirely by or through a private trade. We know of several growers who dispose of their crops of several thousand pounds annually to private customers who have learned the value of good nuts. So greatly has the demand increased that in no single instance is anyone of these men able to supply the demand of the natural outgrowth of his own work, and orders are usually booked a year or more in advance. This is the ideal method of handling the crop, and the one method which enables the grower to secure the best price for his product.

In building up such a private trade, advertising must be resorted to, either through the newspapers, magazines and other channels, or by distributing samples of nuts. "Once a customer, always a customer" should be the motto for the grower to hold in mind, and every effort should be made and every precaution taken to see that the nuts, from year to year, are absolutely uniform in size, shape, and quality. Do not send a customer one size, shape, or quality one year, at a certain price, and the next year vary it. Such treatment will tend to make customers dissatisfied, and the grower may lose them entirely. This point cannot be too strongly emphasized.