The outlook for the success of the pecan industry in northern territory is exceedingly promising where hardy, early-maturing varieties are properly grown in nursery on hardy stocks under climatic conditions that will best fit them for the locality in which they are to be planted.
President Morris: We can give some time to the discussion of Mr. Roper's paper. I want to ask if some of the hardy kinds which will stand the winters well may not carry their ripening season so late that they do not properly mature! Isn't this a line of observation we have got to follow out in adapting pecans to northern fields? Who has had experience?
Mr. Littlepage: That is a very important point, and it is one of the things that everyone is going to discover who is engaged in northern pecan planting on the extreme limits within the next few years. There isn't much danger of the pecan getting frost-bitten in the spring as some imagine, because the pecan tree seems to be a pretty good weather prophet. They don't get ready, as a rule, till most of the danger is past. A great majority of the Persian walnuts and pecans don't begin to pollenate till the tenth of May, and it is very rare that a tree doesn't ripen its nuts there. But once in a while we discover a tree that sets a bountiful crop annually and never matures a nut, because it gets frost bitten. It simply doesn't have the length of growing season.
Mr. Rush: I remember a pecan tree I received, and have had growing for the last six years in Pennsylvania. It was never affected with the cold, and made luxurious growth. But I haven't been so fortunate as to get it to bear, although it throws out catkins in the spring.
President Morris: The pecan tree is known to be hardy as far north as Boston. There are quite a good many near New York City, some of them fine, trees, but not bearing much, and for the most part small nuts.
Mr. Rush: Mr. Jones of Jeanerette, Louisiana, has been at my place, and he says that the growth of the pecan is just as luxuriant there as in Louisiana.
President Morris: The point we want to bring out is this, and I think we ought to emphasize it at this meeting—that pecans suitable for northern planting must include the idea of an early ripening season, earlier than the ripening season of southern pecans.
Mr. Rush: Sometimes there is a provision in nature for that. The tree will adapt itself to the climate, and give a smaller nut.
President Morris: What has been your experience, Mr. Roper?
Mr. Roper: We have only fruited Stuart at Petersburg. All the nuts have been well filled, but much smaller than the Stuart farther south.