Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

SIXTEEN big pecan nuts on a single small lower branch of one tree in our big, bearing orchard on our Calhoun County Orchard Plantation. This picture, in natural colors, from a photograph taken in late September, 1919, gives an idea of the prodigious number of nuts that a single large, bearing tree will yield.

Paper Shell Pecans

The first quarter of the east front of our bearing pecan orchard. As far as the eye can see, stretch row after row of fine, big pecan trees (compare with man for size); many of which have borne over two hundred pounds in a single season.

What better evidence could you wish of the adaptability of soil and climate to pecan growing?

All illustrations of pecan trees in this book were made from photographs taken on our plantations of over 7000 acres in southwest Georgia—where pecans thrive best.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Few of the Noted Authorities and References

Government Statistics.

Famous Food Authorities.

Prominent Magazines Quoted.

Noted Agricultural Authorities.

Copyright, 1921, Elam G. Hess, Manheim, Pa., Issued Jan., 1921.

The above photographic illustration shows a big, bearing pecan tree on our plantation, near the house. For size, compare with the men shown in the foreground.

FOREWORD

Food is the need of the day—of every day.

Food is the need of the future.

From the beginning of the world food production has been the most important of the activities of man—but food production has frequently taken uneconomic channels. Even before the war in Europe started, the tendency toward changing standards in food production was marked.

In one of America’s leading periodicals, we read: “Tree crops is the next big thing in farming,” says J. Russel Smith, after an 18,000–mile journey through the nut growing countries.

The man who is alert to changing food standards, who realizes how largely the cattle herds of the world have been depleted during the World War, who has learned how long it will be before they can be built up, will see in this condition an opportunity paralleled only in a small way by the noted investment opportunities of the past.

About a hundred years ago the railroad offered an investment opportunity which the Vanderbilts were wise enough to see—and to seize. You know that the Vanderbilt wealth has lasted through generations—increasing year by year.

About fifty years ago there was a similar opportunity offered in steel—demanded by the rapidly growing industries. The names of Carnegie and Schwab head the list of the famous “thousand steel millionaires”—made rich by foresight.

Forty years ago electricity offered its opportunities to Edison—and to many others who have become extremely wealthy because they combined courage with foresight.

Marvelous as have been the fortunes in railroads, in steel and in electricity, we are today, says the Luther Burbank Society in its book, “Give the Boy a Chance,” “facing an opportunity four hundred times bigger than the railroad opportunity was a hundred years ago, eight hundred times bigger than electricity offered at its inception, fifteen hundred times bigger than the steel opportunity which Mr. Carnegie found—because agriculture is just by these amounts bigger than those other industries.”

From land—the most permanent basis of wealth—immense fortunes of today and tomorrow are being drawn. America is beginning to see a new vision,—its agriculture is taking a newer, more profitable form.

What is the Biggest Future in Agriculture? When James J. Hill staked his all in apples and received in return a profit estimated at ten million dollars—he was merely a pioneer in the new type of farming.

Yet the pecan comes into bearing as early as the apple orchard and remains in bearing many times as long, says Bulletin No. 41, of the Alabama Department of Agriculture.

It is particularly significant that the strongest advocates of tree agriculture are those familiar with conditions in nut growing countries. Consider that fact in connection with this statement of Luther Burbank, the Edison of Agriculture: “Paper Shell Pecans of the improved varieties are the most delicious, as well as the most nutritious nuts in the world. They are higher in food value than any other nuts, either native or foreign.”

In a prominent agricultural weekly we read: “The tree that yields a pound or two of nuts at five years of age is counted upon for twenty to fifty pounds by the tenth year, and after that the yield grows beyond anything known in fruit trees, because the Pecan at maturity is a forest giant.”

In the face of such facts, is it not wise to consider carefully the interesting facts on Paper Shell Pecans found within?

ELAM G. HESS, Manheim, Lancaster County, Pa.
Keystone Pecan Orchard PlantationsPresident Keystone Pecan Company
in Southwest Georgia—Calhoun, Dougherty, Lee and Mitchell CountiesPennsylvania State Vice President of National Nut Growers Association

“Pecan production is destined to become one of the most important lines of orchard development in the United States.”—Cong. Record of the United States, p. 1101, Vol. 54.

Right Foods—The Increasing Demand

No matter what may happen, the demand for nourishing foods is sure to grow so long as the population increases. Railroads, steel, electricity—all are recent developments, none of them indispensable to mankind. But existence itself depends on nourishing foods.

“Then,” you say, “no business should be surer than that of supplying food to the growing population of America.”

Correct, provided you supply the right food.

Food standards are changing

For food standards are changing. Prove that fact, if you will, by the figures of the U. S. Census Bureau for the years 1900 and 1910, a period unaffected by the World War.

During that period the population of the United States increased from 75,091,575 to 91,972,266—an increase of virtually 223
10 per cent. Therefore, the production of any foodstuffs should increase by the same percentage during that period to provide for the same consumption per capita.

Less beef, less pork, more nut meat

Has the consumption of beef increased during that period? Apparently not—for there were 8.7 per cent. less cattle on the farms in 1910 than in 1900. Nor was there any material increase in imports. That there was not a corresponding increase in the price of beef during this period, is indicated by the fact that the value of all cattle on American farms increased only 1.6 per cent. between 1900 and 1910—an increase only one-fourteenth as great as the increase in population.

There was a loss of 7.4 per cent. in the number of swine on American farms and a decrease of 14.7 per cent, in the number of sheep—the inevitable result of which loss while population was increasing to the extent of 223
10 per cent. was an increase in price per pound in pork, ham, bacon, mutton, etc., which automatically cut off a large part of the demand.

A loss of twenty-nine pounds per capita on animal flesh

When urging the necessity for close study of the food problem, President Wilson pointed out the fact that during a ten-year period there had been a loss of 29 pounds of animal flesh per capita per year. With such a record it is obvious that some foods to replace meats must be found.

Why Spend Millions For Imported Nuts?

“We are annually importing between 60,000,000 and 70,000,000 pounds of nuts at a cost of between $12,000,000 and $13,000,000, while we export nuts worth less than a half million dollars. Why should we spend millions of dollars each year in buying nuts from foreign countries, when we can grow the pecan, the equal of any other nut, either native or foreign, in unlimited quantities?”—Congressional Record of the United States, Vol. 54, No. 27.

Poultry Gains Fail to Equal Increase of Population

Poultry was the only exception among meats to this history of diminishing supply, increased prices and diminishing demand. Yet the gain in the number of all fowls on American farms was only 17 per cent., while the population was increasing 22.3 per cent. The American production of nut foods was increasing 55.7 per cent. in the same period without beginning to meet the demand.

Though the increase in value of the American nut crop was 128.1 per cent., still the increase in consumption required an increase in imports so great that in 1910 America was supplying only one-fourth of the nuts it was eating; while in 1900 it supplied half.

Government figures, taken from a leading nut publication, show that in 1900 the value of nuts imported into the United States was $3,484,651. By 1910 it had risen to $12,775,196, which is 365% of 1900 importations, although the population of the United States increased only 22.3% during that ten-year period.

In 1919 there were $57,499,044 worth of nuts imported, which is 450% of the importations in 1910, although the 1920 census shows an increase of only 15% in population since 1910. Nut importations in 1919 are 1650% of those in 1900, while population increased only 40% between 1900 and 1920.

We see, therefore, that there is a gain in nut importations between 1900 and 1910 twelve times as great as the gain in population; that the later increase is so great that this gain between 1900 and 1919 is 39 times as great as the increase in population. Surely this is conclusive evidence of the great increase in nut consumption in the United States, when we remember how greatly the American nut crop was increasing during this period.

Nut consumption increases thirty-nine times as greatly as population

These authentic figures astonish even the man who has learned by experience that “nut meat is the real meat” of greatest food value; for they show what great number of his fellow countrymen have proved their belief in the same fact. The man who has looked upon nuts as a holiday diet alone, cannot fail to see his error, when he realizes that this increase in the importation of nut meats in 1919 compared to 1900 is nearly nine times as great as the increase in population; despite the largely increasing American production.

Higher education in food values has led people to realize the necessity for different and more varied diet—and this educational development has been facilitated also by economic conditions.

The public forced to cut down on animal flesh—grazing land scarcer

As population increases, land becomes more valuable. As land becomes more valuable—intensive farming is practiced. Grazing becomes virtually impossible under such conditions; and, despite all the efforts of the Department of Agriculture experts, cattle raising is pushed farther and farther from the large centers of population. Increased transportation and costs of refrigeration mean increased meat prices—even the importation of large quantities of South American beef between 1910 and 1914, for instance, failed to keep meat at a price low enough so that it could constitute the large food element which it once was on the American table.

“Shall We Cease to Eat Meat?”

Available supply of pork, beef and mutton shrinking

asks Field Illustrated for March, 1919. A question of great significance, from a publication of unquestioned leadership on scientific cattle breeding. A question graphically illustrated by this self-explanatory chart.

OUR AVAILABLE MEAT SUPPLY (PER INDIVIDUAL)
IN 1880 WAS
HOGSCATTLESHEEP
17
10		7
10
IN 1900
8
10		9
10		6
10
IN 1917
6
10		6
10		½
SHALL WE CEASE TO EAT MEAT
OR DRINK MILK
OR WEAR WOOLEN CLOTHES

Copyright 1919, Field Illustrated

Field Illustrated shows that, the country over, it takes an average of three acres to support a single full grown cow through the summer season alone. It shows that wheat is the great competitor of the meat crop, that wheat has driven livestock from the western ranges, and that during the past four years wheat has been driving the dairy cows and the beef steer from the eastern and middle western farms.

Animals must not compete with human beings for cereal foods

“Whenever there is pressure for food,” concludes Field Illustrated, “and animals must compete with humans for the cereal products of the fields, then animals are pretty likely to lose out. An acre of corn will feed ten times as many people in the form of Johnny Cakes as it would if converted into meat.”

This statement is in striking accord with the conclusions reached by Graham Lusk, one of the two American representatives to the Inter-Allied Scientific Food Commission, who wrote in December, 1918, “It is, therefore, axiomatic that in times of scarcity one must not give to pigs food which can nourish human beings.” For further data, see pages [14] and [15].

Why America Must Eat Less Animal Flesh

The call of the United States Food Administration for meatless days, for porkless days and for every day a fat saving day, taught a lesson that America will never forget.

Americans use twice as much animal flesh as any European nation

Food experts have for years emphasized the fact that Americans eat too much animal flesh. Physical Culture says:

“About forty per cent. of our American bill of fare is of animal origin. In England the percentage is but twenty per cent. of the total food, in Continental Europe it is less, and in Japan it is not more than five per cent. Yet the Japanese have astounded the world in every test of endurance.”

Excessive in cost, wasteful, and the cause of illness

“‘The American soldier is eating 100 per cent. too much meat,’ said the world famous Dr. Wiley; while Dr. Gordon J. Saxon, director of the laboratory for cancer of the Oncologic Hospital, Philadelphia, was quoted by the Philadelphia North American as ascribing the wonderful resistive powers of the French soldiers to the fact that they lived on a meagre supply of high protein foods, like animal flesh, and were given an abundance of fats and carbohydrates. He laid stress on the excessive cost of our American diet with its high ‘animal intake,’ and this was also emphasized by the booklet, ‘War Economy in Food,’ issued by the U. S. Food Administration, which characterized animal flesh as the most expensive of staple foods in proportion to food value.”

Fat is needed; securing it through eating animal flesh is the source of trouble

Americans are just learning that the cause of most of their bodily ailments is the securing of fat by eating animal flesh. As the Literary Digest well says in its March 9th, 1918, issue:

“Fats are chiefly valuable as fuel for the body. But in addition to being consumed and turned to energy, fats are also readily stored away by the body, alongside muscle and bone; as a reserve in times of illness or physical exertion.

Chief among the functions of protein is its importance as a builder of bodily tissues. It is structural. The part it plays is like that of iron in a locomotive.”

Once built, the body, like the locomotive, needs only sufficient building material (protein) to rebuild wornout portions; but it needs motive material (fat) in far greater proportion. Yet high animal flesh diet, which has been the American custom, puts into the system a far greater amount of protein than is needed and too little fat. The system cannot absorb this excess protein, and sluggishness, intestinal derangements, autointoxication and flesh-borne diseases are the inevitable result.

Fat is essential to withstand exposure

“Fat is fuel for Fighters,” said the U. S. Food Administration. It urged civilians to avoid waste of fats because fats are necessary to those who must withstand extremes of climate, stand in water-soaked trenches and indulge in extreme physical activity.

Two to four ounces daily are needed

As Good Health for March, 1918, pointed out, “Fats are fuel foods! The daily requirement is two to four ounces.”

There is a way to get this required quantity of fat without the excessive protein intake which is the inevitable result of our high animal flesh diet. By following this plan America can multiply its industrial efficiency, and benefit the physical welfare of all.

Nut Meat Gives Fat and all Needed Protein

In his speech to the National Nut Growers’ Association, at Biloxi, Mississippi, Dr. Kellogg emphasized the necessity for fuel foods and the need for less proteins and albumens. He said:

Nut production destined to exceed animal industry

“To nuts, then, we must look for the future sustenance of the race.... Half a century hence the nut crop will far exceed in volume and in value our present animal industry.”

He emphasizes the fact that all experiments have proved that “Nut protein is the best of all sources upon which the body may draw for its supplies of tissue building material,” while at another point he adds, “On account of their high fat content they are the most highly concentrated of all natural foods.” At great length, he compares the ease of assimilation of nut fats with that of the other source of fat, and concludes, “nut fats are far more digestible than animal fats.”

Pecans supply the proper ratio of fat and protein

Necessity is the mother of invention. If America had utilized in the past its full opportunities to grow pecans—the best of all nuts in high fat content with the perfect ratio of protein—we could have shipped to our soldiers abroad the nourishment most needed in most condensed form, protected from all contamination and free from all putrefactive bacteria. It would require approximately a tenth of the cargo space and would need no refrigeration. It would require no cooking; could be munched on the march, and would be assimilated more readily than animal fats and proteins.

The public is changing from animal fats

It requires but a glance at any newspaper or magazine to realize that vegetable fats are taking the place of animal fats—and that the source of virtually all the new products along this line is nut oil, peanuts and cocoanuts being the largest sources of supply to date. Our 1915 Pecan Book quoted Prof. H. Harold Hume, then State Horticulturist of Florida, Glen St. Mary, Fla., as saying:

“According to analysis, the Pecan is richer in fat than any other nuts—70 per cent. of the kernel is fat. The pecan may at some time be in requisition as a source of oil—an oil which would doubtless be useful for salad purposes—but it is never likely to be converted into oil until the present prices of nuts are greatly reduced.”

Since then pecan prices have had a decided tendency to increase because the demand is growing more rapidly than the supply; and the chances of the pecan being used for oil are more remote than ever. Yet one of the great reasons for the increase in demand is increasing public knowledge of the pecan and its wonderful food value. For the pecan is proved richer in fat than any other nut, with the right proportion of easily assimilated protein, and free from any irritating membrane such as makes some nuts difficult of digestion by those who have weak stomachs.

Nut Meat is Superior to Animal Flesh

Nut meat is Nature’s food product for supplying fats and proteins, superior in every way to animal flesh. Dr. Kellogg, of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, said:

“Nuts are rich in fat and protein. On account of their high fat content they are the most highly concentrated of all natural foods. A pound of nuts contains on an average more than 3,000 calories or food units, double the amount supplied by grains, four times as much as average meats and ten times as much as average fruits or vegetables.”

For example, according to Jaffi’s table, ten different kinds of our common nuts contain on an average 20.7% of protein, 53% of fat, and 18% of carbohydrate. Among all nuts the pecan has the largest percentage of fat and the best balanced proportion of protein, analysis showing 12% protein, 70% fat, and 18% carbohydrate.

Meat (round steaks) gives 19.8% of protein and 15.6% of fat, with no carbohydrate. A pound of average nuts contains the equivalent of a pound of beefsteak and, in addition, nearly a pound of butter and a third of a loaf of bread. The nut is, in fact, a sort of vegetable meat. Its composition is much the same as that of fat meat, only it is in much more concentrated form.

Knowing that the nut is a highly concentrated food, the question naturally arises, can the body utilize the energy stored in nuts as readily as that supplied by meat products?

Nut meat is readily digestible

The notion that nuts are difficult of digestion has really no foundation in fact. The idea is probably the natural outgrowth of the custom of eating nuts at the close of a meal when an abundance, more likely a superabundance of highly nutritious foods has already been eaten, and the equally injurious custom of eating nuts between meals. Neglect of thorough mastication must also be mentioned as a possible cause of indigestion following the use of nuts.

“The fat of nuts exists in a finely divided state, and in chewing of nuts a fine emulsion is produced so that nuts enter the stomach in a form best adapted for prompt digestion,” says Dr. Kellogg.

Pecans Furnish The Balanced Ration

“The pecan is a nut of immense economic value. The pecan furnishes practically a balanced ration. It is a highly concentrated and highly nutritious food. Compared with round steak, it contains one-twelfth as much water, two-thirds as much protein, from four to six times as much fat and has between three and four times as great fuel value.

Pecans contain most of the elements essential to the building of the frame and body tissues. The food value of pecans is rapidly becoming generally recognized, and it will not be long before the pecan will be extensively used not only as a substitute for certain classes of food, such as meats, but also a substitute for food of all classes.”—U. S. Congressional Record, Jan. 12, 1917.

Nuts—A Staple, Necessary Food

Long valued for diabetics—a good food for all

“There are abundant indications,” says the Journal of the American Medical Association for September 21, 1918, “that nuts, which have long found a valued place in the dietary of the diabetic without detriment to his health, will grow in popularity as foods for the well.”

“Not luxuries—but among the most nutritive of foods”

“The exigencies of war time have emphasized anew those properties of nuts as foods which remove them from the category of luxuries and place them on the list of substantial components of the day’s ration,” it adds in its editorial comments on the experiments of Professor Cajori, of Yale University. “It should be remembered,” it states, “that bulk for bulk they (nuts) belong among the most nutritive foods ordinarily available.”

Opposing the prejudice that nuts are difficult of digestion, it adds, “Cajori’s studies lead him to the conclusion that if nuts are eaten properly and used in the diet as are eggs, meats and other foods rich in protein, they have a physiological value on a par with that of staple articles.” Only in the case of the chestnut—because of its large starch content—was cooking desirable.

Commenting upon this article, Good Health Magazine for January, 1918, says: “For nearly half a century we have advocated the use of nuts as a staple element of the dietary of man.”

As Good Health points out, these conclusions of Professor Cajori are in harmony with the suggestions of the United States Food Administration that nuts “should be counted as part of the necessary food and not eaten as an extra.” “We are led to believe,” adds Good Health, “that the occasional indigestion following injudicious eating of cheese and nuts is probably often due to forgetting that they are very substantial foods, and eating them at the end of an already substantial meal.”

Ideal food for nursing mothers

The experiments of Dr. Hoobler, of Detroit, Michigan, in the Woman’s Hospital and Infant’s Home, showed that for nursing mothers a diet consisting largely, 50%, of nuts, was far superior to any other dietary, and in every particular giving nearly 15% greater flow of milk, with 30% greater food value, and that the mothers took the diet readily and enjoyed it. (Journal of the American Medical Association, Aug. 12, 1917.)

THE SECOND QUARTER of the east front of our big, bearing orchard. To realize the immense size of this orchard, add to this picture the trees on page one, and remember that these together show only one-half of one side of this orchard.

Nuts Versus Beefsteak

Animal flesh supplies too much protein for bodily needs

“Beefsteak has become a fetish with many people; but the experiments of Chittenden and others have demonstrated that the amount of protein needed by the body daily is so small that it is scarcely possible to arrange a bill of fare to include flesh foods without making the protein intake excessive. This is because the ordinary foodstuffs other than meat contain a sufficient amount of protein to meet the needs of the body. Nuts present their protein in combination with so large a proportion of easily digestible fat that there is comparatively little danger of getting an excess,” states Dr. Kellogg.

“In face of vanishing supply of animal flesh it is most comforting to know that meats of all sorts may be safely replaced by nuts not only without loss, but with a decided gain,” he adds.

Among the other advantages of nuts and animal flesh which Dr. Kellogg cites are the freedom from waste products such as uric acid, urea, carmine, etc., which cause so many human ills.

Nuts are clean, sweet and aseptic, free from putrefactive bacteria; while ordinary flesh foods contain three to thirty million putrefactive bacteria per ounce.

Nuts—clean, sweet and pure—do not deteriorate like animal flesh

Nuts are free from trichinæ, tape worm and parasites, and from the possibility of carrying specific disease which is always present with animal flesh. “Nuts,” says Dr. Kellogg, “are in good health when gathered and remain so till eaten.”

Nuts—The Safer Source of Protein

Why add to your load the burden of the tired steer?

“Beefsteak has a certain food value,” says Good Health for January, 1919, “though far less than is generally attributed to it, but in addition it embodies toxic elements, waste products from the animal’s body, contained in the venous blood, always poisonous, which gives the beefsteak its red color.”

“These elements are muscle poisons and brain poisons. They cause fatigue in the animal from which they are derived and in the man who eats them.”

“An experiment by the late Victor Horsley, a London surgeon, proved that in concentrated form these poisons completely paralyze the brain cells.”

“Do we need meat?” asks Alfred W. McCann, famous food authority

“Do we need meat?” asks Alfred W. McCann, noted food authority, in Physical Culture. He answers his own question by pointing to conclusive proof of Anthony Bassler and others, that the human system cannot utilize over two ounces of protein a day. Yet four ounces of beefsteak, roast beef, pork or lamb chops, etc., contain all the protein the system can utilize, while cereals, milk, eggs, nuts, etc., add to the quantity. He proves by the figures of former Secretary Houston, of the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, and of Dr. Clyde L. King, University of Pennsylvania, that Americans consume 80 grams of protein daily, compared to 44 grams for France before the war; 14 grams for Japan; 26 for Russia; 27 for Austria. He indicts Americans as “Kidneycides,” overtaxing the kidneys by this excess protein diet, and bringing on constipation, biliousness, headache, catarrh, rheumatism, etc. He emphasizes the disadvantages of animal flesh as a source of protein, shows how vegetable sources of protein are purer and safer.

“No” answers the world’s most authoritative food body

The Inter-Allied Scientific Food Commission, the most authoritative food body ever gathered, “voted that meat was not a physiological necessity.” Dr. Graham Lusk, one of the American Commissioners to that body, suggests cutting the American meat ration in half. That this is readily possible is shown by the November, 1919, Monthly Crop Report of the United States Department of Agriculture. Page 116 gives the annual average meat consumption in the United States as 179.9 pounds per capita—while best authorities agree with the statement of Alfred W. McCann that 91 pounds would be more than ample. Dr. Lusk comments on the fact that in England “The reduction of meat in the dietary produced no unfavorable results.”

Grow Pecans—The Ideal “Fat” Food

Dr. Kellogg in an address at Biloxi, October, 1917, said that the officials of the United States Department of Agriculture foresaw this condition and the increasing prices for animal flesh over twenty years ago. Since then the increase of our human population and the decrease of our animal population has so greatly exceeded their estimated figures that the question, “Is meat imperative to complete nutrition?” has become an imminent one.

Animal flesh supplies protein and fat. We have shown on page [10] how nuts supply the necessary fat and protein. Dr. Kellogg emphasizes the fact that nuts supply proteins of such a character that they render complete the proteins of cereals and vegetable foods.

“This discovery is one of the highest importance since it opens a door of escape for the race from the threatened extinction by starvation at some future period, perhaps not so very remote,” adds Dr. Kellogg.

Nine-tenths of our corn fed to animals

“From an economic standpoint,” he adds, “the rearing of animals for food is a monstrous extravagance. According to Professor Henry, Dean of the Agricultural Department of the University of Wisconsin, and author of an authoritative work on foods and feeding, one hundred pounds of food fed to a steer produces less than three pounds of food in the form of flesh. In other words, we must feed the steer thirty-three pounds of corn in order to get back one pound of food in the form of steak. Such an extravagant waste can be tolerated only so long as it is possible to produce a large excess of foodstuffs. It is stated, as a matter of fact, that at the present time scarcely more than ten per cent. of the corn raised in the United States is directly consumed by human beings. A large part of it is wasted in feeding to animals. This economic loss has been long known to practical men, but it has been regarded as unavoidable since meat has been supposed to be absolutely essential as an article of food.”

“Think of it,” comments Good Health, for June, 1918, “100 pounds of perfectly good corn, in exchange for three pounds of beef, and the pound of beef when obtained is worth less as a food than a pound of the original corn. Ninety-seven pounds wasted just to satisfy a cultivated appetite, or appetite based on ignorance.”

“In view of these facts,” stated Dr. Kellogg, “it is most interesting to know that in nuts, the most neglected of all well known food products, we find the assurance of an ample and complete food supply for all future time, even though necessity should compel the total abandonment of all our present forms of animal industry.”

Seven or eight million acres of nut trees would supply all needed fats

“The planting of seven or eight million acres of nut trees might supply the whole country with an abundance of fat, so that it would no longer be necessary to waste corn in feeding to pigs to obtain an inferior quality of fat,” says Good Health.

A panoramic view in our large orchards, showing a fraction of one side which is not illustrated in the other pictures. Can you, looking forward fifteen years or more, see in this a picture of your own pecan unit trees sturdy and healthy, their branches thickly covered with pecans, filling out under the summer sun? The soil is the same, the climate the same, results should be better with the finer varieties planted.

Twenty Times As Much Food Per Acre

3,000,000 calories per acre from nuts; only 150,000 from beef

Consider what it would mean if America could take its many million acres of pasturage and get from each twenty times the food value! Of course, no thinking man would claim that every acre of pasturage is available for nut raising; but where the change can be made, that gain is possible.

As Dr. Kellogg points out, it takes two acres two years to produce a steer weighing 600 pounds; an average of 150 pounds per year per acre. The same acre planted to walnut trees would, he states, produce 100 pounds per tree per year for the first twenty years; which means 4,000 pounds of nuts from an acre of 40 trees. The food value of the 150 pounds of steer cannot exceed 150,000 calories or food units; while the nut meat from the same acre equals 3,000,000 calories in food value. As Dr. Kellogg concludes, “Twenty times as much food from the nut trees as from the fattened steer, and food of the same general character, but of superior quality.”

As Dr. Kellogg previously pointed out: “A pound of pecans is worth more in nutritive value than two pounds of pork chops, three pounds of salmon, two and a half pounds of turkey or five pounds of veal.”

While the price of nuts is by some considered high, Dr. Kellogg directs attention to the fact that “even at present prices the choicest varieties of nuts are cheaper than meats if equivalent food values are compared.”

Nuts as a Substitute for milk and eggs

Experiments by Dr. Hoobler, Detroit, and at Battle Creek Sanitarium, prove that nuts “Possess such superior qualities as supplementary or accessory food that they are able to replace not only meats, but even eggs and milk.”

Nut Meat The Real Meat

Nuts imported 1917, nearly ten times as great as in 1900

It must be remembered that the period in which the use of nut meat grew over fifteen times as quickly as the population increased was before the war conditions made every man consider food values more carefully. Right up till 1914, the year in which the war in Europe started, there was a steady increase each year in the production of nuts and the importation of nuts, yet prices kept soaring on all the better varieties because the greatly increasing supply failed to keep pace with the increase in demand.

Though the importation of nuts in 1910 had been valued at over thirteen million dollars, and this was nearly four times as great as in 1900—it kept increasing until in 1917 it amounted to nearly thirty-three million dollars. The importation of nuts in 1917 was nearly ten times as great as imports for 1900, yet these imports and the increasing American production failed to meet the demand.

Pecan nut meat a year-round necessity

These figures from U. S. Government reports show that any one who assumes that nuts are a holiday luxury is entirely wrong. That the public wants nut meat the year round, that the only drawback to a still greater increase in consumption is the shortage of the supply of fine nuts is proved by United States Department of Agriculture figures.

When J. C. Cooper wrote in a leading agricultural weekly:

“The demand for walnuts is growing much faster than the supply. We do not produce in America more than twenty per cent. of what we consume, and it will take fifty to a hundred years, with all the encouragement of the nut experts, to raise enough walnuts to supply the home demand.”

he stated a condition which applies with manifold greater force to the consumption of pecan nuts.

It is true that the California production of Walnuts doubled during ten years, while the importation trebled—yet in spite of this five-fold production English Walnuts constantly increased in price. Since then the price of walnuts has increased steadily every year, despite increase of supply until in November, 1918, the price per pound was 80% higher than at the same time in 1914, according to the Monthly Crop Report for December, 1918. Yet the 1918 crop was nearly twice as large as in 1914, according to Statistician H. E. Pastor, well known as an authority on western crops.

The price of pecans increased 50% on the commonest sorts between 1900 and 1910; and from the December, 1918, Monthly Crop Report we see that the 1918 price per pound on all pecans was over 38% higher than for 1917; Georgia, which has the largest percentage of paper shell pecans, showing the highest price per pound.

The Finer The Nut—The Greater The Demand

Increased demand is for finer nuts

It is true that in Walnuts a condition has come about as in other nuts—that the increasing demand is for the finer, higher priced grades. What are the points of superiority that have led to this great increase in public demand? Why are old established black walnut trees less valuable as profit producers than English Walnut trees only a quarter as old and producing only a fraction of the quantity of nuts?

First—Thinness of shell and ability to get out the kernels whole.

Second—Superior flavor and food value.

Third—Attractiveness in appearance of the nut and of the nut meat when removed.

Fourth—Ease of keeping nuts for longer periods and using them readily.

Paper Shell Pecans meet every demand

Now compare the fine Paper Shell Pecan with the English Walnut on every one of these four points of public demand.

It is contained in a shell so thin that it is easily broken in the hands without the use of nut crackers. The partitions between the kernels average as thin as in the English Walnut, and the average person will, in less time, remove more whole kernels of the Paper Shell Pecan than of any other nut.

As to flavor and food value let such experts as Luther Burbank answer. (See Foreword, page [4].) Remember that his answer is certainly unbiased, for he is a patriotic native of California where America’s largest crop of walnuts is produced—and that State produces no quantity of Paper Shell Pecans.

As to attractiveness in appearance, of both the nut and the nut meat, you and your friends are the best judges. People who know both nuts have already handed in their verdict favorable to the paper shell pecan. In addition, the pecan has been endowed by nature with a shell which is air-tight—and therefore keeps many times as long without losing its fine flavor or becoming dry and tough.

“The Most Prized of All Nuts For Domestic Uses”

In Bulletin No. 30, of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., we read regarding Pecans: “In the course of time, however, as they are more widely grown, they will become the most prized of all nuts for domestic use, and it is probable that when the supply is large they will be preferred abroad to the best Persian nuts.”

IN OUR ESTABLISHED ORCHARDS stretch row after row of these sturdy, strong-trunked, well established pecan trees, which after severe pruning are forming immense heads with a profusion of nut bearing branches.

The Pecan—The Year-round Nut

Can be raised at best in a forty-mile radius

The pecan is the one nut suitable for eating the year round. And the present tendency is toward the year-round use of nuts.

Another reason why the finer pecans are surer to maintain their high prices than any other nuts is found in the fact that Walnuts of the finest grades are being raised in quantities in California, Oregon, Washington and other States, and in England, France, Italy and South American countries—while the territory in which the Paper Shell Pecan attains its highest state of perfection is confined to a 40–mile radius in southwestern Georgia, embracing those portions of Calhoun, Dougherty, Lee and Mitchell counties, which are nearest Albany.

Is it any wonder that the former State Entomologist of Georgia, Mr. E. Lee Worsham, whose name is virtually always included as one of “the three big men in his line of endeavor,” wrote: “In my opinion the pecan growers of South Georgia have the finest horticultural proposition in the United States.”

“Among the Highest Priced Horticultural Products of America”

“Pecans of the second class bring $12,500 a carload. As a result of the superior merit of this class of pecans and the limited extent to which they are grown, they are now netting the growers in certain districts a value per volume of product ranking them among the highest priced horticultural products grown on a large scale in this country. Carloads weighing 36,000 pounds each were recently (Oct. 1916) shipped from the Albany district of southwest Georgia to Chicago brokers at 35c. a pound or $12,500 a car. These prices were for pecans of the second class, the firsts bringing still higher prices.” United States Congressional Record, Vol. 54, No. 22.

“What is The Paper Shell Pecan?”

Mention Pecan to any one who has tasted the improved paper shell variety and they will assume that you are talking of Paper Shell Pecans. For the person who cracks and eats paper shell pecans feels it almost a sacrilege to call the common wild pecan a pecan.

Yet there are thousands of Americans who have never tasted paper shell pecans, and who think of pecans only as wild pecans, grown largely in Texas.

Pecans are divided in three general but radically different classes, as the description and cuts below indicate.

Wild Pecan—a staple food among Indians

The ordinary wild pecan is native to America. The earliest French explorers found that one of the staple foods of the Indians was this palatable nut which grew in the forests of the south, and in that portion of Mexico adjoining the Gulf States. Pecan trees in Texas and Louisiana have been found which were over five hundred to seven hundred years old—which were still yielding large crops of nuts.

Like the oak, no one ever knew a Pecan tree to die of old age.

There are in the Southern States wild pecan trees of which the records go back to the first civilization on this continent.

The pecan tree is so symmetrical and beautiful that it is called “The Queen Shade Tree of Many a Southern Home.” Its fruitage is so prolific that it is said to be “one of the most astonishing food engines in all nature, yielding literally barrels of nuts.”

“Your Pecan Is Superior To Our Walnut,” Says Burbank

In the American Nut Journal, May, 1915, we read: “Luther Burbank is credited with the following statement regarding the pecan tree: ‘If I were young again I would go South and devote my life to propagating new species of the pecan. Walnut culture is the leading horticultural product in California, makes more money for us and makes it easier than anything else, and your pecan is superior to our walnut. The longevity of the pecan orchard and its immense earning power make it one of the most profitable and permanent of agricultural investments.’”

The Hardiest of All Nut Trees

Pecan trees fear no drought

The reason for this long life is that the pecan is the hardiest of all nut trees—free from all ordinary tree pests and diseases because it is of the hickory group, and the longest lived member of that group. The lack of surface moisture—the great enemy of most trees—is not a disadvantage to the pecan, for it has a remarkably long tap root which goes down so deeply into the ground that it draws moisture from the sub-soil. Since the blooming period is late in Spring, the buds are not injured by frost.

The wild pecan has been a popular nut, rivaling, because of its superior flavor, such other nuts as the walnut, chestnut, shellbark, hickory-nut, etc. This popularity was secured despite its many drawbacks—for the shell of the wild pecan is hard and the partition walls between the kernels thick and bitter. There was too little meat and too much difficulty getting it—but the experts saw in the great demand for pecans, despite these disadvantages, the promise of rich reward for improving the pecan.

Seedling superior to wild grown Pecan

The seedling pecan is the next step toward pecan perfection. Larger than the wild pecan, and thinner shelled, it equals or surpasses it in flavor, depending upon the variety of seedling under consideration. Selling at an average price of 35 to 45 cents per pound, which is double the cost of the wild pecan, it has so much more meat and it is so much more accessible, that it is always a better paying purchase for the housewife. So justly popular has the seedling pecan become that the wise dealer and the discriminating housewife will have nothing to do with the inferior, thick-shelled pecan, which is brightly tinted and polished to disguise the inferiority.

The Pecan Makes More Progress Than Other Nuts Made In Centuries

“With practically no improvement as a result of culture and breeding, but taken directly from nature, many of the wild pecans afford an exceedingly desirable product. Unconscious, and, therefore, unsystematic selection and planting of pecan seed about dooryards during a period of less than 200 years has developed varieties of such desirable quality that the pecans most successfully compete with other species, like the almond and the walnut which have been under cultivation for many centuries.”—Congressional Record for January, 1917.

The Paper Shell Pecan

Had the work of experts not gone further than establishing the improved Seedling Pecan, it would have justified all efforts—for the seedling pecan bore justifiable comparison with any other nut on the market in food value and accessibility; until the Paper Shell Pecan was developed from budded trees.

The paper shell pecan—the queen of all nuts

The Paper Shell Pecan has an air-tight shell so thin that it is easily broken in one hand by a gentle pressure. Kernel is large, easily removed, of flavor so much finer that any observing person can distinguish it from any other pecan by taste alone.

Instead of a bitter partition wall which imbeds itself in the nut when it is cracked, as in the wild pecan, the paper shell pecan has a thin, tissue-like membrane which is easily removed.

With the paper shell pecan a larger portion of the total weight of the nut is meat than with any other nut, with the possible exception of the finest almond. And this meat of the paper shell pecan contains seventy per cent. fat, while that of the almond contains but fifty-four per cent.

The paper shell pecan is the Queen of all nuts.

Quality unequalled but supply is limited

It has no equal from the standpoint of size, appearance, accessibility of meat, size of kernel, and fine flavor. The only disadvantage is the limited supply—for there is but a small territory in which soil conditions and climate are right. The walnut is raised in England, France, Italy and in large quantities in the three Pacific coast states, and in smaller quantities elsewhere. The paper shell pecan seems to flourish best within a forty-mile radius around Albany, in Southwest Georgia. Of the half million budded pecan trees in the world, two hundred and forty thousand, or practically half, are in this forty-mile radius. Were complete records of yield accessible, it would be seen that this half of the budded trees has produced far more than their portion of the crop.

While State Entomologist of Georgia, Mr. E. L. Worsham, wrote: “The Pecan Industry has developed beyond the point where it matters not what you or I believe. It is a success. Results are being produced of wide interest and of permanent character, and the industry in the Albany district in the hands of competent men has wonderful potentialities. The hundreds of thousands of dollars invested by shrewd business men in Commercial Pecan properties, after personal investigation, argues that the development being recorded in the Albany district is meritorious.”

The First Three Steps In Establishing Paper Shell Pecan Orchards

First, the Seedling Pecan Nut is Planted in the Nursery

This picture shows a corner of the Nursery on our Calhoun County Plantation, in which thousands of young trees have been grown. Selected seedling nuts from our bearing seedling orchard (in the background) have but recently sprouted, and are just above ground when this first picture is taken.

A Few Years Later in the Same Nursery Corner

One of our orchard unit owners inspecting the nurseries two years later. The vigorous, sturdy two year old trees have been budded to the standard paper shell varieties.

The Sturdiest Budded Trees are later Transplanted while Dormant, into the Orchard Units

Illustration at left shows one of our unit owners, Mr. A. E. Pretty, Dawson, Yukon Territory, standing at a dormant tree in recently planted units purchased by Alaska and Yukon people.
Illustration at right shows Mr. Henry E. Morton, President of the First State Savings Bank and of the Morton Mfg. Co., Muskegon Heights, Mich. (owner of 45 units on our plantation) standing at the same tree, three months later.
Both pictures made to same scale, as figures of men show. (See letter of Mr. Morton, page [50].)

THE 12 OZ., “GIFT BOX” of Hess Brand Paper Shell Pecans, which has been ordered and re-ordered by pleased purchasers in every section of the United States and Canada—and in many foreign countries, including Mexico, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, China, France and Great Britain.

Hess Brand Paper Shell Pecans

Selected for finest flavor—and superior quality

are selected for their superior quality from among the finest nuts produced anywhere in the pecan district. They are the choice of thousands of satisfied customers, everywhere, because they are the finest flavored nuts which Nature produces.

They are uniformly large in size, thin in shell and well filled with nut meat, as shown by illustration in natural colors on outside cover.

Their plump kernels—of delicious flavor and wonderful nutritive value—are easily removed whole without the use of nut crackers. By following the simple directions in every box, the thin shell is easily cracked with your bare hand.

Sold the world over—under this Money Back Guarantee

THE 10 LB. CARTON for family use—the logical second purchase of many pleased customers.

They are packed in the beautiful 12–oz. Gift Box shown above; and sold at $1.25 per box, under this Money Back Guarantee:—“Eat six at my risk—if dissatisfied, return the balance within ten days and get your $1.25 back”; yet out of thousands of packages sent out, less than six packages have ever been returned.

One shipment of pecans, boxed, ready to send out—photographed in the packing room at Manheim.

We have Sold Tons of Hess Brand Paper Shell Pecans

The 12 oz. gift box leads to orders for 10 lb. cartons or 175 lb. barrels

Though our Gift Boxes have enjoyed a remarkable sale during the Holiday Season, our business is by no means limited to that period. Orders for large quantities are received throughout the year from individuals for use in their homes; but since each year’s supply has been exhausted in a few months, we have found it necessary to refund money continuously month after month until the new crop was harvested.

Numerous purchasers of Hess Brand Paper Shell Pecans have re-ordered many times in a single winter—while many others who have first bought the 12–oz. box have ordered in large quantities up to 200 pounds, rather than be compelled to order so frequently.

We have customers who buy by the barrel for their own table, and some who have ordered two and three barrels in a single season. Each barrel contains about 175 pounds.

America does not produce enough pecans of this standard

Our experience selling these high quality pecans shows that there is no question whether the public will pay the increased price. The real problem is to secure more pecans to meet the constant increase in demand. The whole southern section of the United States does not produce enough paper shell pecans of this standard to fill the demand for them.

ELAM G. HESS.

A Few Typical Cases of Re-orders

Detroit, Mich., Jan. 30, 1919.

Bought twenty pounds—orders 75 pounds for next season

I enclose check for 10 lbs. of Hess Pecans. Could you still take my order for another 10 lbs.? I wish you to place me on your orders for 75 lbs. of the pecans from next fall’s crop.

W. H.

Sawyerville, Quebec, Mar. 18, 1919.

Will you please take my order for twenty pounds of Hess Pecans from the next crop? The nuts are just splendid, and we never tasted anything like them before for flavor.

R. G. B.

Reading, Pa., Jan. 6, 1919.

Had 70 pounds orders 40 pounds more

The 70 lbs. Hess Pecans received just before Christmas were eminently satisfactory and disappeared like hot cakes. I am enclosing check to cover the following order: 10 lbs. Ex. Fancy, 20 lbs. “A,” 10 lbs. “B.”

W. O. L.

Nov. 7, 1919.

Orders 3 barrels later

Please enter my order for 3 barrels of fancy grade pecans.

W. O. L.

Dec. 2, 1919.

The barrel of pecans arrived the day before Thanksgiving. The nuts are gone and I am ready for more; wish the entire order before the Xmas holidays.

W. O. L.

Buying in 50 lb. lots

F. B., Los Angeles, California (in the heart of the finest walnut district), ordered 22 oz. box for $2, Feb. 13th, 1917. March 11th, 1917, wrote: “They are unquestionably the very best I ever ate, and I am wondering if you have more to offer, and if so, the price in bulk.” Aug. 2, 1917, order booked for Fall, 1917, delivery, 50 pounds Hess Brand Paper Shell Pecans.

Nov. 27, 1917, sent check for $50 in payment of 50 pounds.

February 26th, 1918, sent his third re-order for 50 lbs. of Hess Brand Paper Shell Pecans for delivery, Fall, 1918, for $50.

In 1919, purchased 20 lbs., remitting $25.00; 1920, bought orchard units on our plantations.

16 pounds in less than three months

Order received, Dec. 11, 1917, from Dr. M. B., Wabash, Ind., for $1 box of Hess Brand Paper Shell Pecans.

Jan. 8, 1918, “Enclosed find check for $5 for which ship pecans like the 12 oz. box recently sent me. They are the finest I ever ate.”

Jan. 24, 1918, sent check for $10 for more nuts.

Feb. 9, 1918, bought orchard units.

“Wish I had a barrel”

J. C., Seattle, Washington, wrote Jan. 29, 1917: “The size, quality, and flavor are all of the very highest. They are richness itself. Regarding food value, I question if there is any nut on earth equal to it. I wish I had a barrel of them. You ought to plant at least 10,000 acres.”

April 10th, 1917, ordered 10 lbs. more for Fall, 1917, delivery, saying, “They are the very best on earth.”

“The Finest Nuts I Ever Saw”

Says the world famous food authority, Dr. J. H. Kellogg

Dr. J. H. Kellogg, head of the famous Battle Creek Sanitarium, is a world famous expert on nuts. His writings, based on a half century of research, have shown that pecan meat is suitable for “every month in the year, for all climates, all work and all ages of mankind (except infants)”, as Good Health stated. He has directed attention to the fact that pecans give all the food elements that animal flesh gives, in better proportion and with assured freedom from impurity and disease. He has made clear the vital importance of vitamines, found only to a very slight degree in animal flesh, but profusely found in nuts.

His unquestioned leadership in this field gives added importance to this letter:

Battle Creek Sanitarium

Battle Creek, Mich., Jan. 18, 1918.