In the southern colonies on the Atlantic coast, the pecan was first described by Thomas Walter in his publication "Flora Caroliniana" in 1787. He was an Englishman who had a plantation in St. John's Parish on the Santee River, South Carolina, where he made an extensive collection of southern plants. After describing the tree, evidently a nursery specimen, he ended with the words, "The fruit I have never seen." It is known now that the native range of pecan did not extend to the present state of South Carolina. One of the first large pecan plantings in the state dates back to 1890; This was a seedling planting of 1000 trees made by John S. Horlbock at Charleston. Some of these trees are still producing. The planting never proved profitable and has changed ownership several times.
There are several small plantings of black walnuts, Chinese chestnuts, and Persian walnuts in various parts of the state. Persian walnuts do well in the Piedmont soil region and in 1947 the trees there had a good crop.
+Commercial Pecan Plantings+
The pecan, is one of the most popular tree nuts and is the only one grown on a commercial scale in South Carolina. Pecans are grown in every county, although there is a comparatively small number of trees in most of the Piedmont and Mountain counties, and several counties in the lower Coastal Plain. Orangeburg County, with the largest number, had 27,528. Pickens County, with the fewest trees, had 801. The total for the state was reported as 227,027 trees.
Pecans are an important money crop of the state. During the last five years the production of pecans has averaged three million pounds, which brought farmers a yearly average of $500,000. The average yield per tree of bearing age in 1947 was only about 7 pounds, or 100 pounds per acre. Eighteen cents was the average price received for improved varieties, and twelve cents for seedlings, during the ten-year period 1935-1944. With these prices and yields per bearing tree, it is easily seen that there is plenty of room for improvement, for the production of pecans in South Carolina by the average grower has not been very profitable during the past nine or ten years. South Carolina has ranked fifth or sixth in the production of pecans of improved varieties during the past several years. While production from year to year has been up and down, the general trend is up.
There are two general classes of pecan trees grown in South Carolina: seedlings and named or improved varieties. The average crop figures over the ten-year period 1933 to 1942, show that six times as many nuts of improved varieties were produced as of seedlings. South Carolina produces about 6% of the pecan nuts of improved varieties in the United States and less than 1% of the seedlings. The seedling trees are for the most part given very little attention, receiving neither fertilizers nor sprays. They produce nuts of miscellaneous size, shape, and quality, and are usually smaller than the improved varieties. The cost of production of seedling pecans is small for they are usually grown in back yards, in chicken ranges, and in pastures.
There are a number of pecan varieties that are adapted to and grown in
South Carolina. The most popular varieties are Schley, Stuart, Success
and Moneymaker. A number of other varieties, including Teche, Frotscher,
Mahan, Pabst, Delmas, Van Deman, and Moore are grown in some sections.
Schley is very susceptible to scab and should not be planted if a spray program is not carried out. Moneymaker, Stuart, and Success are not so very susceptible to scab and are satisfactory where a complete spray program is not used. Some years ago several growers in one county ordered Stuart trees and these trees, now bearing, turned out to be Teche, so there is some uncertainty as to the variety names in some sections.
The planting distance varies considerably, depending somewhat upon fertility of soil and length of growing season. Most of the plantings are too close, having as many as 20 or more trees per acre. Because of the longer growing season in the lower half of the state, trees grown there will be larger at a given age than those grown in the Piedmont section.
+Cultivation Methods+