We will spend a few minutes now running over the pecan situation. We can hardly omit it altogether because there are so many people in the northern states who are interested in the pecan in a financial way. The chart before us shows first the native area. This part here is the portion of the United States in which the pecan is a native. You notice how far upward it extends, almost to Terre Haute, Indiana, and across southern Indiana along the Ohio River, and it is right in here, about where the pencil indicates that some of our best northern varieties have originated. Mr. Littlepage and W. C. Reed and others have shown us nuts over in the Court House that originated there. The Busseron and the Indiana are the two most northern. They are a little way north of Vincennes. No varieties so far of any merit have originated in Illinois. While we have the map of Illinois before us, I would like to point out the place where Mr. Riehl originated the variety of chestnut we referred to some time ago. Down in more southern Illinois is where we find Mr. Endicott. This darkened area along the southeastern part of the United States, and extending away up into Virginia, shows the area to which the pecan has been planted with more or less success. This area extending down over the Piedmont and up into Virginia and West Virginia, is the mountain area to which the pecan is not adapted. You never find pecans on the uplands. This thick, heavy area shows the territory within which the pecan has been most extensively planted. It is not common down in southern Florida. You notice, too, that over here in Texas there have been very few orchards planted to pecans. North of these shaded areas, anywhere up in Ohio or Pennsylvania or New York, the pecan has not shown any adaptability or has not shown sufficient adaptability to justify commercial planting. Whatever planting of pecans is done in the area north of the shaded portions there must be considered as experimental.
The Chairman: The southern part of Texas is actually in the tropical zone. It would be interesting to know if we have the pecan actually growing in the tropics.
Mr. Reed: We have more or less vague reports that it is growing down near Brownsville. I think Mr. Littlepage told us the other day of a friend of his who is planting pecans.
The Chairman: Brownsville is very close to the tropics.
Mr. Littlepage: Mr. Yoacum told me he had a grove down there that had not been a success so far. I know that quite a number of people have discussed the question of planting pecans in that section.
Mr. Reed: This is one of the largest of pecan trees; it is the largest that it has ever been my personal privilege to see. It has a circumference of between 18 and 19 feet and a spread of about 125 feet. We estimated that it was about the same height. It stands on the west side of the Mississippi River, some distance south of Baton Rouge.
Mr. Littlepage: What is the approximate water level below the ground?
Mr. Reed: It is quite near the surface.
Mr. Littlepage: I thought so. There are conditions you will observe that are unusual. In lands where the water level is near the surface, there is a tendency in the tree to shove out a lot of surface roots. You can travel all over the pecan belt of Indiana and will never see a pecan tree that does not look as if it had been driven in the ground with a pile-driver, but I have noticed that you find those spreading roots where the water level is near the surface of the ground.
Mr. Reed: It is interesting to know that right near this tree were other large trees, nearly as large, that were blown over, and they showed no tap-roots, but merely the surface roots, This slide shows a pecan bloom. The pistillate bloom is clear up on the terminate growth; the staminate, like other nut trees, is on the growth of last season and comes out somewhat in advance of the pistillate, necessarily.