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:
Why your investment is secure
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.