MR. MCCOY: In our latitude the pecan blooms somewhere near the twentieth of May, from that probably up to the twenty-fifth, and the pollen is scattered by the winds, and, if it rains at that particular time, the female bloom perishes, and we have no pecans. I think the pecan depends entirely upon the winds.
THE PRESIDENT: We have been hoping all the time that we would have a chance to hear from Prof. Hutt on the relation of the hickory stock to the pecan top. A good many persons have experimented with it, and papers are giving, from time to time, glowing accounts of the pecan tree on hickory roots. We would like to hear from Prof. Hutt.
PROF. HUTT: We haven't much data matured on that at present, Mr. President. It takes so long to get data on those subjects. We have a lot of trees budded on the stocks of water hickory and on the pecan, and we are testing them out. My theory was that the Hicoria aquatica, growing in wet, sour lands, would enlarge the range of probable production of pecans on such lands, and on lands on which the pecan, on its own roots, could not normally be grown, but our data are not matured yet. I think they have been three years in the nursery and two years set in the orchard. It will probably be four or five years before we get any exact data on that subject.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps, Mr. C. A. Reed has investigated some of the later top-worked hickories.
MR. C. A. REED: That is an old question—pecan on hickory. It has been tried all over the South and the Southwest, and you will see some this afternoon at Mr. Littlepage's place. As a usual thing, the enthusiasm over pecan on hickory has run high while the experiment was new. The propagator has found that it was not a difficult thing to make the scions live, and, so long as the hickory stock is larger than the pecan scion, so that the feeding capacity is equal to, or even greater than, the consuming capacity of the scion, the outlook has been very satisfactory and encouraging, and while that stage has been going on a great deal has been written. A little later you hear less about it, and less and less, until, finally, you hear almost nothing. But I will say this, that there are sections in the Southwest where there is considerable enthusiasm over it just now. Just recently an article was published by Judge Frank Gwynn which was quite encouraging, and from his point of view it is. He is on high, hilly land, where he has no pecan trees, and he has been able to get nuts considerably sooner by top-working these dryland hickories—the mocker nut, or "bull nut," as it is known down there—and so far he is getting very satisfactory crops. But it is the consensus of opinion over the entire South, so far as I have observed it, that where there are pecan trees suitable for top-working, they answer much better, and the final outcome is very much more satisfactory with pecan on pecan than with pecan on hickory. Now, with pecan on Hicoria aquatica, which Prof. Hutt spoke of, I can cite you one instance which is very interesting south of Morgan City, Louisiana. Mr. Frank Beadle, I believe, was the name, top-worked a number of trees that were standing in water, and he also top-worked some that he had transplanted from the wet bottom to higher land. Those that were transplanted lived and bore nuts for quite a number of years. The last I knew they were bearing quite satisfactory crops, but those that were allowed to remain in the standing water died very shortly after the pecan top began to develop. The entire tree died.
THE PRESIDENT: That is, the pecan top killed the native right in its own habitat.
MR. C A. REED: That's right.
DR. STABLER: How about the acidity of the soil on that higher land? Was that tested?
MR. C. A. REED: Well, there would be so very little difference in the level of the soil that I imagine the acidity would be about the same. When I said "high land" I meant land that wasn't over-flowed.
DR. STABLER: Oh, yes.