We come now to the wild pecans of Texas. The recent census figures show that fully three-fifths of all the pecans produced in the United States come from Texas. This photograph shows the native wild pecans along the Colorado River. Here is the pecan as a park tree. This picture was taken in Llana Park, New Braunfels, in west Texas. One of the nuisances in pecan trees is illustrated in the upper part of this photograph; you will notice the Spanish moss that grows so densely on the pecan trees if neglected. Unless the moss is kept out it gets so dense that it smothers the fruiting and leafing surface, so trees that are densely covered with that are able to make leaves only on the terminals. You notice in the rear the leaves of bananas that grow there throughout the entire year.
The Chairman: I have noticed that the mistletoe was a bad parasite on the pecans in some regions. Have you found that?
Mr. Reed: Yes, that is true; that is one of the pests of the pecan. This slide shows a typical Texas scene. The wild pecans have been gathered and are brought into town and are waiting the buyers. You will notice right here is a bag that has been stood up and opened, waiting for a buyer, the same as we see grain in the streets of northern towns, and here are pecans on their way from the warehouse to the car. The next slide shows another step; they are on their way now from Texas to the crackery or the wholesalers. The crop of pecans in Texas alone usually runs from 200 cars to 600 or 700 cars. This year the crop is small and probably not over 200 cars, so the prices are going up. This is the pecan crackery in San Antonio, having a capacity of 20,000 pounds a day. The pecans are cracked by machinery and the kernels are picked out by hand. This slide shows a native pecan tree. The one in the foreground was from across the river near Vincennes. It is one of the first northern varieties that was introduced, but it is now superseded. The next is the original tree of the Busseron. The nuts from that tree are on exhibition over at the Court House brought here by Mr. Reed. The tree was cut back quite severely several years ago to get budwood and has not made sufficient top yet to bear normal crops again. This is the original tree of Indiana. Beside the tree is the introducer, Mr. Mason J. Niblack, the gentleman with his hand by the tree. Now we come to the original Green River, one of the northern Kentucky pecans. It is in a forest more than twelve miles from Evansville across the Ohio River in Kentucky. The trunk of that tree is typical of others in the forest. There is a pecan forest of perhaps 200 acres, from which everything but pecan timber was removed several years ago.
The slide before us shows the trunk of a supposed chance hybrid between hickory and pecan. The next slide shows a grafted tree of that variety. It is interesting to note the vigor of this hybrid. It is quite the usual thing to get added vigor with hybrids. This is one of the most beautiful, dense, dark green trees that I have ever seen in the hickory family. This tree is in northern Georgia, but it is not so prolific as the parent tree.
The Chairman: Does the shell fill down there?
Mr. Reed: No, it does not.
The Chairman: It grows very vigorously in Connecticut. It is a perfectly hardy hybrid, but I am afraid I shall only be able to use the crop for spectacle cases.
Mr. Reed: This shows one of the most common methods of propagating the pecan, the annular system. It is a slight modification of the system Mr. Rush applies to the propagation of the walnut. This shows one of the tools designed especially for annular budding, the Galbraith knife. The rest of the operation you already understand. It is merely placing the bud in position and wrapping the same as Mr. Rush does.
The Chairman: I would like to ask, does it make a great deal of difference whether the bud ring is half an inch long or an inch and a quarter long?
Mr. Rush: It does not make any difference. The union takes place on the cambium layer. It is not made on the cut.