Unfortunately this year the Greenriver hulls did not open, although the nuts were well filled. Ordinarily I believe they have been dropping their nuts, but not all at once.
Twenty-five years ago I planted some Butterick and Busseron along a stream on a dairy farm on which I was born. There was no regular record of their performance, but I have observed that the Buttericks have had a good crop in 1950 and also in 1951.[6]
I had previously concluded that the Butterick was almost a non-fruiter, and quit propagating it years ago. These especially productive Buttericks are on alluvium near the barn in a permanent pasture where the cattle congregate while waiting for the gate to open to let them into the barn. It is therefore fertilized over and over again with cow drippings.
Mr. Taylor's excellent yields are also produced on trees that are on unusually fertile soil.
My conclusion is that the pecan is a very active feeder, and what it needs is about three times as much fertilizer as is required for any ordinary crop.
It is time somebody better placed than I am made a systematic experiment as follows:
1. Feed pecan trees at least five times as much plant food as the nuts and leaves use.
2. Injure the trees by hacking the bark to make them bear, and see how much they can be made to produce by this means.
A Busseron tree in the town of Round Hill stands in a backyard of a friend of mine and they use it, I think, to tie clotheslines to and maybe the boys have had a little fun driving nails into it and it bears every year.[7]
The real find of my observations is a pecan known as All State, which has been wonderfully advertised by one of your fellows.[8] On a catalog it produces a nut two inches long—wonderful. On Mr. Henry Taylor's tree in Hamilton, Virginia, it produces a tiny, symmetrical, pointed nut too small to be contemptible, except for squirrel feed. They might have time to handle the crop.