Mr. Pease: Yes. You see, the bacteria is on the shell, on the outside.
Then when you crack it, it gets on the nut.
* * * * *
President Davidson: Thank you very much, Mr. Pease. I do hate to cut these discussions short. You get as much out of them or more, sometimes, than we do otherwise. There is just one thing I'd like to say before we take a five-minute recess. Mr. Acker is here. He is another man that you might talk to in addition to talking to Mr. Mullins during the recess.
(Recess taken.)
President Davidson: The meeting will come to order. The first thing on the program is a talk by Dr. Cross, Head of the Department of Horticulture, Oklahoma A. & M., Stillwater, Oklahoma, on Pecan Selection in Oklahoma. Dr. Cross.
Pecan Selection in Oklahoma
DR. FRANK B. CROSS, Head, Department of Horticulture, Oklahoma A & M
College, Stillwater, Oklahoma
Dr. Cross: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: The present status of the pecan industry in Oklahoma is the result of close cooperation between the growers and the experiment station combined with a resource which we have in that state consisting of thousands of native pecan trees which may be quickly and economically changed into producing trees instead of just wild forest trees.
I am going to utilize my time this afternoon to discuss, first, briefly the present situation as we find it with reference to pecans in Oklahoma, because there is the important phase of nut growing which we follow in that state. We do grow some walnuts and we have a great many men interested in walnuts, but far and away our major interest is in pecans.
We might divide the work and interest in the state into two phases. First, but of least importance, is that connected with the planting and production of varieties. We have a great many men in the state who wish to plant land to pecans, and, of course, in cases like that the varieties which are available are always selected for planting, and nursery trees, of course, are utilized. The latest phase of that type of development is the planting of apple trees for filler trees with the expectation that the apple trees will be removed after 15 or 20 years, thus leaving the pecan trees at a large size to fully occupy the ground, and in the meantime the apple trees, of course, have produced a profitable crop.