Mr. Bechtel: What has he done with pecans?
The Secretary: The pecan is native with him but he is probably pretty near its northern limit even though I have found it bearing good crops further north. The pecans I have seen at Alton do not seem to be bearing much. He has one or two northern varieties top worked on native pecans one eight years old and another one five neither one of which is bearing.
Mr. Bechtel: He had a very small choice nut that he prized very highly and sent me some scions to propagate for him I think about 12 or 14 years ago. I grew them on our native stock shipped them to him. I never followed it up to see what results he had. I think probably those roots may have frozen out if he had severe winters.
The Secretary: What he showed me were two of the standard northern varieties, I think Busseron and Indiana, which he had grafted on young trees. In southern Indiana they are doing much better. Grafted varieties are bearing but with Mr. Riehl it is the black walnut and the chestnut with which he is making a success.
The President: The next speaker has for his subject the southern pecan and how its commercial development came about. He comes from the one state in the Union of which I may be somewhat jealous. It is the only state east of the Mississippi River with a larger area than Michigan. (Applause). I take pleasure in presenting Mr. A. S. Perry, of Cuthbert, Georgia, Secretary of the National Nut Growers' Association.
GEORGIA'S PECAN INDUSTRY
A. S. Perry, Cuthbert, Georgia
My heart thrills with pride and pleasure as I stand in the Capital City of our great nation and bring greetings to the Northern Nut Growers Association from the fertile fields of the far South.
I am a southerner to the manner born. For six generations my people sleep in Georgia soil and for an hundred years my family have lived in the Albany district the queenliest section of the far south that rests resplendant as a jewel upon the snowy bosom of her royal mother Georgia and as beautiful as a cluster of fragrant flowers that nestles in the girdle of a lovely woman.