We have in the South two pecan organizations, one of which we call the National Nut Growers' Association. You will notice the word National Nut Growers' Association. The association is composed wholly of pecan growers. Many of us recognize that the name is a misnomer. We have been hoping that the time would come when we could have the name of that organization changed to the Southern Pecan Growers' Association, but we have one old member who has one English walnut tree in his orchard, who says we are a national nut growers' association and he objects. Some time that English walnut tree will die or he will die, and then we will be able to change the name. Then we have the Georgia-Florida Pecan Growers' Association. There is a California Walnut Growers' Exchange and a California Almond Growers' Exchange, and I am hoping to see a time when this Northern Nut Growers' Association will have discovered some real commercial nut, and then we will have complete the organization of the nuts of this country, the Almond Association, the Walnut Association, the Pecan Association and then the filbert, or whatever nut you discover here. We will bring them all together in one great national organization, and we will have an organization of real nuts. I am expecting to see that day. (Applause.)
I read a criticism the other day of a book that was published in which the reviewer said: "It is well for a man when he sits down to write a book that he know something of the topic on which he is going to write." I know very little about the possible nuts that may become commercially important in this section of the world. If it wasn't for the fact that when I come North here I like to meet some fellow nut, we wouldn't care very much whether you fellows ever discover a commercial nut in this part of the world or not, because the Lord has been so generous to you. The Lord has not given us a perfect climate. He gives one climatic feature here and another one there and another one some place else. He distributes his benefactions. It seems to me he has been lavish with you people, especially in New York and all through the middle West and the East. You have so many things. Why should you want to grab off the nut business? But just for the sake of letting you have a little variety and having some real good things to eat, I am willing to have you discover some real good commercial nut and then the time will come when we will have this national organization.
I am going to tell you a little bit about the history of the pecan. I think you would be interested in that. The cultivated pecan is of comparatively recent history. It is not so long since those who were in the South dreaming of a commercial nut were in very much the same position as this association is here, although the South seemed to be the natural place for the pecan. There were no commercial pecan orchards twenty years ago. There were wild groves in the river bottoms of Texas which there are today, but there were practically no cultivated pecans. There were actually no bearing groves of cultivated pecans. It is only a matter of fifteen or eighteen years that the cultivated pecan has been commercially planted.
I think our concern was among the earliest. I think we may claim to be the very first who, in a large way, planted pecans. We did not start with the intention of planting them in a large way. It was a sort of natural growth. It was only sixteen years ago this month, sixteen years ago, that I first heard of the paper shell pecan from John Craig of Cornell University; right under the shade of where we are meeting tonight I first heard of the paper shell pecan and was induced to put a little money in planting groves. I think I may say that New York State, through the instrumentality of old John Craig, can take credit for the start of the great commercial pecan groves of the South. Since that time pecan groves have been planted very extensively. I don't think that any accurate statistics are obtainable of the acreage planted to pecan groves in the district in which we are located in southwest Georgia, but in an area of probably forty or fifty miles I imagine there are seventy-five thousand acres of pecan groves. They have not all proven successful. Some have been planted on soil that was not adapted and there are some cases of insufficient or unwise care, and some of not having the proper stock to plant. For one reason or another a good many groves have not proven successful today. Others have proven quite successful. There is no question but what that which was a hope fifteen years ago is today a reality and that the cultivated pecan is today an established industry. I do not mean by that that we have reached the stage which our friend Mr. Taylor has reached with his almonds or which the almond growers have reached. We are still in our infancy and have many problems and the problems multiply as days and years go by. Fifteen years ago we would have said there were no insect pests nor any diseases of the pecan. They have certainly made themselves known in the last few years. We have a good many insect pests and we have some fungus. We do not believe that any of these will be beyond the skill of scientific investigation and that they will ultimately be brought into subjection.
As an indication of the growth of the industry, eight years ago the association of which I chance to be president gathered their first crop of nuts of something like six thousand pounds. Last year we harvested over four hundred thousand pounds of nuts. In eight years of course there was an increased acreage but they were all young groves. I tell you that fact just to show you that when you do find a nut that is adapted to your soil and to your climate, as the pecan is adapted to the climate and soil of the South, it will not take many years to develop such a nut into a commercial proposition.
I had the pleasure last fall of entertaining Mr. Pierce, the president of the California Almond Growers' Association. Mr. Pierce was very much interested in this young giant of the South in the nut world. He had had a very unfortunate experience in the use of pecans. He had passed through Chicago a short time before and a friend of mine, an officer of our association, happened to be a friend of his, and gave him some pecans, and he liked them so well that as he started from Chicago on the way to Washington he indulged too freely, and by the time he got to Washington he had to go to the hospital for repairs. Mr. Pierce wrote me a letter after that and said that he didn't know why the Lord permitted trees to grow such nuts until he created a new race of human beings with gizzards in place of stomachs. That is because California men were not used to eating good, rich nuts. We claim for the pecan that it is about the best nut there is. We don't claim the earth but if you people can develop or discover any nut that is better in quality and more tasty and more alluring than the pecan, we shall be mighty glad to have you discover it, and we hope it will be adaptable to the South. You know the Buick automobile says, "When better cars are made, Buick will make them." "When better nuts are made, we will make them." We know that all people can't have the best. We know that some people have to eat cheaper steaks. The trouble with this country today is that everybody wishes the very best. The packers tell us they have great trouble in disposing of the cheaper cuts of the meat. I do not imagine that the nut growers are going to have much trouble in disposing of the round steaks, but we are going to furnish the best nuts. The market for cultivated pecans has developed in a most marvelous way. There has never been any advertising, except in a very small way, and yet the demand has always exceeded the supply. It has grown just naturally. People learn of a good nut and they spread the good news to their friends so that the demand increases. Customers in New York but four or five years ago would order eight or ten barrels of nuts; they are ordering 150 barrels now.
I want to say to you, find a nut like that that you can grow in New York State or that you can grow down in Connecticut, or in any of this part of the world, and we will be mightily glad to see what you can do, and we will try to steal it and grow it in the South. It has been said that every great institution is only the shade of some great man. If you can build up a great institution of a great commercial nut here in the North let it be the shade of the Northern Nut Growers' Association.
I am not going to keep you longer because this rambling talk is not prepared. I have been interested as I drove through New England in seeing great groves along the public highways of maples and elms, and I have thought how wonderful it would be if those were all pecans or walnuts or almonds or some tree that would bear nuts instead of furnishing shade. There is a world of opportunity in this country for a commercial nut. They are used as delicacies now, most of these nuts, but they are food, and they are food of the very highest type. I expect to see the day when all our best hotels and restaurants will have on their menus nut steaks, almond and pecan steaks, and when a great many of their guests will order these steaks in place of the beef steaks that they are ordering now.
I want to say that we are glad to have your distinguished president as a fellow pecan nut. He is largely interested in Georgia and we see his smiling face frequently in that section of the world. We are interested to see him succeed there and I am sure the members of this association are all interested and pleased to see what he has accomplished in developing the filbert right here in the shade of Rochester. (Applause.)
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