Mr. W. C. Reed: I think this is a very important matter. As a nursery man who has sold a great many trees to promoting companies, I want to say that I have never, with one exception, seen an orchard that has been a success, but I have seen hundreds of failures, some of them where they have set out orchards of 150,000 trees and sold them off in one and ten acre tracts, and in only one case have I seen a success. I think these promotions should be avoided by the nut growers of the North.
The Chairman: This is very valuable information, coming from a dealer.
Mr. Van Duzee: I have found this in the yields of my orchards. Six or seven or eight years ago, I discounted every source of information that I could have access to, as to yields, brought them to a conservative point, submitted them to the best informed men in the United States, and then divided those figures by five as my estimate of what I might hope to accomplish as my orchards came into bearing. I have since been obliged to find some excuses for failing to even approximate those conservative figures. I had this year in our orchard, a 35 acre plot of Frotscher trees which is one of the most promising varieties, six years of age, and there were not five pounds of nuts in the whole plot. I have had an orchard of 36 acres, mostly Frotscher and Stewart, go through its sixth year with less than 200 pounds of nuts to the entire orchard. I have another orchard of 30 acres which in its sixth year has produced less than 100 pounds of nuts. Now many of these promoters guarantee to take care of these orchards, which they are selling, for 10 per cent or 20 per cent, or even half the proceeds of those orchards, from the fifth year. You can see readily that the entire crop of such orchards as I have been able to produce, would not begin to pay their running expenses the sixth and seventh year.
The Chairman: You took good care of yours?
Mr. Van Duzee: I think so. I think there are many gentlemen in the audience who have been through them, and it is conceded that my orchards are at least fairly good representatives of what can be done under normal conditions.
Mr. Corsan: Are yours southern orchards?
Mr. Van Duzee: These pecan orchards are in south-western Georgia.
Mr. Corsan: The Northern Nut Growers Association, as I understand, is a collection of men who are interested in finding out what we can do in the way of growing nuts for the North. We go to the markets and see baskets of cocoanuts, Brazil nuts, California walnuts, but no nuts growing for the market around our neighborhood. In my own city, Toronto, I can see some nut trees because I look very closely at everything, but the average person cannot see them because they are very few. I have a number of experiments on hand. If I succeed in even one of these experiments, I am satisfied to spend my whole life at it. I am not nervous, I can watch a hickory tree grow. (Laughter.) I want to grow some nuts for the next generation. I haven't the slightest thought of making a copper of money out of it but I am going to enjoy the thing, and that's the idea of the Northern Nut Growers Association, or else I have made a mistake.
The Chairman: Is there any further discussion on the matter of frauds? Does anyone else wish to speak on this subject?
Mr. Littlepage: It is indeed very gratifying to hear the President of the National Nut Growers' Association, Col. Van Duzee, speak on this subject and to have the honor of having him with us as a member of our Association. It is gratifying to have him come out in such strong terms on this question. It has always been his policy and his reputation, so far as I have heard, to stand for what is best and squarest in nut culture.