The nuts in the extreme northern limit are not much larger than a hazel nut. But the nuts that grow in Indiana and Illinois from the Ohio River on the south to Rock Island on the northwest and Lafayette on the northeast are much larger. Here are found many superior nuts worthy of propagation. In fact, the writer has before him a great many nuts of named and un-named varieties which he and Mr. Littlepage and others have discovered in their search for worthy nuts in the native pecan woods. There are many thousand acres of these groves on the Ohio, Green, Wabash and Illinois rivers where many trees are found which bear nuts as large as some of the varieties which are being propagated in the Gulf Coast country.
The nuts of the Evansville group are especially noted for their fine flavor. The people of this section will not eat southern pecans if they can get native nuts. This year several carloads of these native wild nuts will be shipped to the Cleveland, Boston, and New York markets. While the finer nuts seldom get into the markets at all but are bought by wealthy men in the locality where they grow. Many men buy from a special tree year after year—its flavor suiting their taste.
The yield from some of these larger trees (and there are many of them four feet in diameter and some as large as nineteen feet four inches in circumference at shoulder height) is very good. The writer has seen a number in the last few days which were estimated to have from four to six hundred pounds, the most of the crop having not yet been gathered. He knows of one tree which bore (17) seventeen bushels and Mr. Louis Huber of Shawneetown gathered 718 pounds from another tree. Two hundred and eighty-five pounds of nuts were gathered and weighted from the Luce tree. These nuts were gathered green for fear of their being stolen and it was estimated that fifteen pounds were left on the tree. Also that the hail storm in early September destroyed fifty (50) pounds more. Hence the Luce bore approximately eight bushels. The Kentucky tree had four and one-half bushels by measurement. The Warrick tree had, the best we can estimate, about 150 pounds. The Grayville, or Posey as Mr. Littlepage wishes to call it, bore at least two hundred pounds by weight. One hundred and sixty pounds were gathered from the Major and two hundred and fifty pounds from the Green River tree. We do not think the Hinton bore to exceed two pounds of nuts. We do not know the amount of nuts gathered from the Indiana and the Busseron trees. The Buttrick tree had some three or four bushels of nuts this year but as a dredge ditch was recently constructed by it, destroying half of its root system, it did not mature its crop. This tree has been in bearing since 1817 and it has not been known to miss a crop previous to this year.
In our search for nuts worthy of being propagated we have found several nuts as yet un-named that are in our opinion much superior to any northern nut that has been brought to public notice. But as we know little of their bearing record and do not wish to burden the nurserymen with too many varieties we will keep these trees under observation for a year or two before naming them.
We have been trying to propagate some of the best varieties at our nursery for about three years. Our first attempt was root-grafting in which our success varied from 15 per cent to 75 per cent under the best conditions. We found after some experience that it was not difficult to root-graft. But last winter, 1911-12, was the coldest winter for some years, the thermometer registering as low as 20 degrees below. Most of our root-grafts were killed back to the ground but few if any of them were killed outright. When spring came they started new growth and are now about four feet high. The fall of 1911 was very warm and wet and they were in vigorous growth until the first week in November when we had a hard freeze which killed the wheat, causing the worst failure in that crop ever known in this section. The winter then following being very cold we had two conditions against spring root-grafted pecans. But we failed to see any budded ones that were injured. However, we only had pecans budded to hickory which was done by Mr. Paul White in May, 1911 and, so far as we know, this was the first hickory top-worked to pecan in Indiana. However, he now has quite a number top-worked last spring that have made a growth of three or four feet. We also have both budded and root-grafted pecans from last spring and summer so that in the spring we will have a better opportunity to see what effect the winter will have on them.
So far as we are able to determine from our observation of a few orchards all pecan trees bought from southern nurserymen and planted in this section have either died out or made very feeble growth. Although some large Texas nuts have been planted here and grown, yet they have either not fruited at all or the nuts have proved no better than our native nuts.
The northern pecan timber is not brash like the southern pecan but is very elastic and tough. An axe-handle made from northern pecan sells for ten cents more than one made from hickory and pecan timber is much sought after by axe-handle makers.
The people in this section have in the last few years awakened to the fact that their swamps studded with pecan trees are about the most valuable lands they possess and many are the inquiries: "Where can we get good budded or grafted pecans?"
The idea of propagating the northern pecan is of very recent origin and while the few attempts at propagation have not as yet met with any very great success, yet we are hoping that the time will be when many acres of our lands shall be set in valuable pecan orchards and our highways lined with long rows of fine pecans, chestnuts, and English walnuts which shall serve the three-fold purpose of beautifying Mother Earth, yielding delicious food, and furnishing a place of rest for the weary traveler.