Mr. C. A. Reed of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, D.
C., and to Col. C. K. Sober, for their excellent lectures and
special work in behalf of this association at this meeting.
_Sixth_--That we express our most sincere thanks and appreciation
to J. F. Wilkinson, for his courteous treatment and entertainment
of this association at his home.
_Seventh_--Be it further _resolved_, that we especially thank each
and every individual member of this association, for their
attendance at this meeting, and for their earnest efforts and
interest in behalf of the same, in helping to make this meeting a
success in every way, and making it the most enthusiastic meeting
that has ever been held by this association, and we thank any and
all members for any special work or research that has been carried
on by said member in behalf of this association, as disclosed by
this meeting.
_Eighth--Resolved_, That we extend to Mr. W. C. Reed our sincere
thanks for his kind invitation to the members of the association to
be his guests at his home in Vincennes, Indiana, on Saturday,
August 22d, 1914.
Signed. W. O. POTTER,
H. R. WEBER,
J. RUSSELL SMITH.
THE PRESIDENT: If there are no objections, the report of the committee
on resolutions will be adopted. It is so ordered. The next thing on the
program will be the lecture and lantern slides by Mr. C. A. Reed.
* * * * *
Meeting called to order at Enterprise, on Friday, August 21, at 10:30 A.
M.
THE PRESIDENT: I want the records to show that this meeting convened in
Enterprise, Luce Township, Spencer County, Indiana, where the members of
the Northern Nut Growers Association visited and studied the native Ohio
River pecan trees, and I want to hear the opinions of the different
visitors. The state entomologist, Mr. Baldwin, will please express
himself upon the native pecan trees on the Ohio River.
MR. BALDWIN: My remarks will be so brief it will not be necessary for me
to go forward. I don't know that it is necessary for me to mention the
fact that I have never lived in and very seldom visited, localities
where pecans grow in this state and cannot, therefore, express an
authoritative opinion as to the merits and demerits of the pecan trees
in this section. It is noticeable that the trees are more free from
insects and fungus trouble than trees in many places. Mr. Simpson, who
has had considerable experience in the South, called my attention to a
very destructive pest that does not exist here in numbers sufficient to
be destructive, as it is in Florida, but he is of the opinion that it
was introduced into that section from this section.
MR. PRESIDENT: What is it?
MR. BALDWIN: Mr. Simpson says--I didn't see any of the insects, and
probably you couldn't identify it without labor,--but Mr. Simpson says
there are two broods and the second brood is now at work. This certainly
is a good field for work for the entomologist. Of course the same thing
would hold true with this insect that is true of others; when a new
species is introduced into a country where it has not heretofore
existed, where the natural parasites are not found, it is more
destructive than where the natural parasites exist. That point is
illustrated very well by the moths that are so very destructive in New
England, and don't do very much damage in the countries from which they
come. From my observations on other native nut trees I was greatly
impressed with the abundance of nuts that some of the native trees bear
here. I am sorry I am not able to talk about something that would be
more interesting to those interested in pecans and other nuts.
THE CHAIRMAN: I should be glad to have our secretary put in the record a
few of his observations.
DR. DEMING: Mr. Littlepage has been talking to us about these pecans
since we started this organization, and has long promised to show us
these trees. We can't get any idea of such trees without seeing them. We
have had many word pictures of them but I had not been able to form any
idea of how great they are. They have a beautiful outline as we see it
silhouetted against the sky, and every evidence of being trees that bear
lots of nuts, which is the kind of trees we are all looking for. We
don't have the pecan tree in the North as a native at all. There are a
few in New England, a few scattered here and there, but none bearing. I
have heard of a pecan not far from my home, possibly twenty-five miles,
that does not bear. I have seen in the city of Hartford a pecan tree
that was nine feet and three inches in circumference and ninety feet
high, of unknown origin, but not bearing. The nut tree that grows best
through our part of the country is the shagbark hickory. It is very much
like the pecan tree here, but never grows to anything like its size, is
not nearly so beautiful a tree and I don't believe it bears as heavily.
I think the average hickory nuts there are very much inferior to the
average pecan here. We also haven't the black walnut there as a native.
That is I have never seen it native though it probably was originally so
in parts of the country. However, when planted it grows to a very large
size, and makes a magnificent tree. About ten miles from my house is the
largest in the state. We have lots of butternuts over the country but no
nut tree that compares in beauty and usefulness with the pecan here.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Smith should be able to size up the situation and
give us some of his impressions. I want to get them in the record.
DR. SMITH: Gentlemen, I don't see how anybody can live by these trees
here and not realize that they are a source of fortune. I can't
understand how men can look at them every year, gather and sell the nuts
and not realize that they are a source of livelihood. I just measured a
big tree in a tobacco field down the road that was thirteen feet and
eleven inches in circumference, that had a sixty foot reach, and was
about one hundred and twenty-five feet high. We measured another, that
had a sixty-six foot reach and they were all bending down with fruit. It
was marvelous and they were certainly giving us their evidence that the
thing for us to do is to go ahead and reproduce them.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Van Duzee, tell us your impressions of these trees.
COL. VAN DUZEE: Mr. Chairman, I simply will add this. As I came through
this wonderfully fertile section of the country, I observed people
building bungalows and cottages and setting out trees other than pecan
in their dooryards. That is the pity of it. As Dr. Smith says these
people here are living close to some of the most magnificent natural
trees I have ever seen, and yet they will go and plant around their
gardens trees that will do nothing in the world but produce shade. It
seems to me there is room for the best kind of missionary work here. I
am glad the nut growers met here and I hope the effect will be to cause
people to think. As we came down the road we estimated that on one tree
there were four or five hundred pounds of nuts. The owner of that tree
didn't study the soil that produced that magnificent crop. Our driver
said they had had two years of failure in their farming operations and
yet right here in the same place nature has handed them another
magnificent crop. I have an idea that the average annual value per acre
of crops on the farms of southern Indiana and Illinois will run in the
neighborhood of a ten dollar bill, and here is a tree, one tree,
presenting thirty dollars. I have no doubt in the world that there will
be fifty or sixty dollars' worth of nuts on this tree up here, and it
doesn't occupy a quarter of an acre of land.
I want to speak about the insects. I don't believe you need to worry
about these unless the planting goes away beyond what I think it will in
this section. Here is the proof, right here in this river bottom in the
nuts we see on these trees and the growth of the trees. They are
thrifty, not mutilated by insects or dying. They are at home and the
conditions are absolutely favorable. I have been very much pleased and
very glad I came, and if I were not thoroughly tied up in a section I
think is more adapted to nut growing, I should come up here and
undertake to do something in this section, for I see great
possibilities.
THE PRESIDENT: That is an opinion that is of real value. Now I will call
for volunteers. Those of you who have been sight seeing here and have
impressions and ideas you would like to express we should be glad to
hear from.
PROFESSOR CLOSE: One thought that has interested me is this. If we
should take away from this neighborhood about half a dozen men this
great industry would be forgotten. It is to these men who have done this
kind of work that we owe a great deal. They are engaged in a wonderful
work. I presume they realize how great it is. It means the developing of
an industry that will grow in the United States and could be carried to
other countries. These great trees are a wonder, no question about it,
and the fact that here is a new industry being pushed by half a dozen
men is still more wonderful.
THE PRESIDENT: If this section of the country had been planted to
seedling pecans it would have made every man who owned forty acres of
it, comfortable. We have with us Mr. Dodd, who is one of the old
residents of this neighborhood. He can tell us some interesting things.
He was here long before I came and looks at present as if he might be
here many years yet. We certainly hope he will be. If it were not for
him we would not know that Enterprise is on the map. He reports for the
county paper and keeps the world in touch with Enterprise. I should like
to hear him tell about the old pecan trees when he first knew them, and
I want what he knows about them to go into the record.
MR. DODD: Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I'm no speech maker,
never made one in my life, but I guess I know something about the pecan
business. These trees were here when I came and that was in 1852. Those
big trees that you looked at were big trees then, and must have been
fifty years old, I judge, from what I have learned from older people. So
you see they have been there a long time. I have a piece of ground here
and if I had known as much about the pecan business then as I do now I
would have had every foot of my land in pecans. I make a right smart
little money in pecans as it is. Littlepage knows that. I have shipped
pecans to him off my trees, shipped them to him many times. They are no
better than the others, but we are old friends and he wanted me to send
them to him and I did. I don't know anything about the pecan business in
a general way, as to what they will produce or how much money they will
average, but I think we have slept on our rights in this country for
seventy-five years. If that is any good to you, you are welcome to it,
and we are glad you are here today.
MR. POMEROY: One tree out in the back here looks as if it might be
fifteen or sixteen years old and it is bearing well. It is a large tree
well filled with nuts, notwithstanding the fact that lightning has
struck it twice and destroyed at least two years' crops. It seems to me
there are thousands of dollars to be made in an investment in nut trees
here where they do so well.
THE PRESIDENT: Now has any one else any observations to make? Mr. Weber.
MR. WEBER: Out here you remember you showed us quite a number of
seedlings growing in a corn field like milkweeds, growing right
alongside of them, and one of us thought the milkweeds were the pecans,
as they looked much the same. It seems to be hard to keep them down.
THE PRESIDENT: That reminds me that when this organization was formed I
had the honor of being the first man on the ground. Dr. Deming called
the meeting to order, Dr. Morris was there and so was Professor Craig,
who has since passed to the great beyond, and a number of others, and I
remember telling the bunch who were there at that time, that if I ever
had the opportunity I would take them into a country where the pecans
really grew. I have attempted to make good. If there remains any doubt
in your minds we will proceed to lose you in the great Green River pecan
woods, and if you are not pretty well stocked with provisions, you may
never get out. I told Professor Close who is making a study of the
pawpaw for the Department of Agriculture, that we also grew pawpaws in
southern Indiana and that I would show him some large trees. So he came
down with us and we went to Boonville and got in Senator Hemenway's
automobile and I introduced him to a pawpaw tree six feet and a half in
circumference at the ground, five foot in circumference three feet from
the ground. So the chair takes some pleasure in having been able to
show the things that were promised. Let us hear from Mr. Riehl.
MR. RIEHL: I think you folks are very unfair to me. You have said
everything I wanted to say before you called on me and I really don't
know what else I can say. I had in mind what Professor Smith has been
saying to me, and what some of you people have already said, that it is
time for you people here to wake up. You don't know what you have got.
You are like people in many other sections of the country, they don't
appreciate what they have at their very doorways. If I were a young man,
I would come here and plant pecan and walnut trees, but I am too old now
to make such changes. In a few years you may remember what I have said.
The walnuts are as profitable as anything else, and much more so than
any farm crop you can grow. Nothing will produce as much value and with
as little trouble as nut trees. I am convinced of that.
PROFESSOR SMITH: If they would follow your suggestions they would soon
have another Garden of Eden.
THE PRESIDENT: Professor Smith has reminded us that the crops in the
Garden of Eden were purely tree crops, and they grew without effort. But
after the fall Adam and Eve had to go out and cultivate the soil and
raise corn. Probably in that garden they had pecans and walnuts. I
believe that is his theory and it may be good.
PROFESSOR SMITH: O, beg your pardon, that is in the book of Genesis. The
text describes nothing whatever except trees, and then Adam fell and had
to dig in the ground and make his bread by the sweat of his face.
MR. POTTER: Is the tree of knowledge the pecan tree?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't know. Can any one else say?
PROFESSOR SMITH: My remarks on the Garden of Eden were brought out by
what our President said, but I have published others that are not very
lengthy and you can buy them.
THE PRESIDENT: Let's hear from Mr. Lockwood.
MR. LOCKWOOD: Dr. Knapp wants me to expose my ignorance and tell you the
crimes I committed and intended to commit. It was about three years ago
that we purchased a little over a thousand acres in Gibson County, near
Grayville, and about three hundred and fifty acres of it were in timber.
We decided to clear up as rapidly as possible all the forest land and
cultivate it in corn. Now comes the crime which Dr. Knapp wants me to
expose and I am going to confess it. We deadened probably a hundred of
as fine pecan trees as you ever saw, from six to eighteen inches in
diameter, and Dr. Knapp heard about it and visited our farm, and it was
on his account principally that we quit cutting the pecan trees. Now if
anybody else cuts them we have them arrested. We have the second best
orchard in Gibson County. I have joined the association and came here to
get a line on you and I have got a good many good things by coming. I
would like to have you visit our farms. We have some very fine trees to
see and I will also give you something to eat, because I am the chief
cook. I want to emphasize the remark one member made that it is a great
work these men are doing. You get that impression when you come to the
meeting, and it shows great sacrifice and love for their fellow men.
THE PRESIDENT: That is very good, Mr. Lockwood. Now Dr. Knapp will tell
us what he thinks.
DR. KNAPP: I know very little about pecans but I was interested in Mr.
Lockwood's trees because he had a magnificent pecan orchard, possibly
five hundred trees, and they were contemplating having the trees cut
down because they thought they were in the way of the cultivation of the
land for corn. This is not the case because the pecan tree goes away
down deep for water and is not like the surface root trees. I have seen
large wheat fields in the same location with large pecan trees in them,
and men have told me that they produce just as much per acre on the land
where the pecan trees are as where there are no pecan trees. I went to
see Mr. Lockwood and took him what little literature I had on the pecan
industry and promised to send him some more, and insisted that he read
it before he destroyed his trees. He kept his promise and I am glad to
see that he has taken an interest in the pecan industry.
THE CHAIRMAN: You are a real benefactor, Dr. Knapp, and entitled to
great praise.
PROFESSOR SMITH: While we are distributing things gratis I want to make
a little statement in the same vein as a previous speaker. He points out
the work that a few enthusiasts are doing. Most of the things worth
while are done by the people who never get any credit in a financial
way. You will find the things that count are started and done by that
live force of men that work for the fun of working with no promise of
reward. Why should Mr. McCoy or Mr. Reed come down here and tell us how
to bud trees, and what varieties to use? It is plainly a labor of
enthusiasm and love. I want to express my particular appreciation of the
work done by Mr. Thomas P. Littlepage. We hear from Indiana through Mr.
Littlepage. On every occasion when we get in trouble and want bud wood,
along he comes and helps us out. He seems to have all kinds of equipment
for keeping it or he can always go to a pecan tree and get it. We never
hear of the trouble or expense. He spends money as if he had a barrel of
it. He has spent lots of money trying to get the people to know there
was an Indiana pecan. We also know that Mr. McCoy and Mr. Wilkinson and
others too numerous to mention have lost thousands of dollars and have
worked long and hard to get this industry started. The industry needs
enthusiasm and no end of work. It means work to get out and hunt trees
and bud wood and these men are entitled to lots of credit for their
efforts.
THE PRESIDENT: The chair appreciates that compliment but he is hardly
entitled to so much praise. However, all the efforts we have made to
create interest in the pecan have been well spent. We have had lots of
trouble in getting bud wood and if it had not been for Ford Wilkinson we
never would have gotten anywhere. He is the best climber in the country.
He has gone at all times and under all conditions and has done more real
hard work than all the rest of us put together. He always climbs the
trees. The Major tree is about fifty feet to the first limb. We couldn't
have gotten along without him. And Mr. McCoy is entitled to great
credit. The first time I ever saw the Posey nut Mr. McCoy brought some
to my home in Boonville. That was a number of years ago. He first
stimulated Mr. Brown to put the Warrick pecan on exhibition. As I grew
up I knew where these pecan trees were and who kept a dog and what time
he got up and there were not many pecan trees then I would not attempt
to climb, but I wasn't as large as I am now. Of late years Mr. Wilkinson
has done more than I have along that line.
MR WILKINSON: I appreciate what you say of me but it takes all kinds of
people to make a world and to grow pecan trees. I have tried to do my
part but without the others I couldn't have done anything. We expect to
continue at the work as long as there is any success in sight at all and
hope soon that some of the hard part will be over.
THE PRESIDENT: Before we leave that subject I want to say that a few
years ago some of us who had begun to think we knew something about the
pecan and were quite sure of our ground, induced Mr. C. A. Reed of the
Department of Agriculture to come down here and make some trips through
these woods and tell us what he knew, or what he thought of these
pecans. We gave him all the facts we could, and the suggestions he made
started us on the right track as to the varieties to propagate.
THE PRESIDENT: The boat is ready, but before we go I want the report on
nominations. I want the officers elected in Enterprise.
DR. DEMING: I would like to say this before we proceed to the election
of officers. There has been some talk among us that it would stimulate
interest in our work and meetings, and would enable us to confer honors
on more people, and more members who deserve such honors, if the term of
the presidency were limited to one year. There has been no rule about it
but our first two presidents have each held office two years. They have
been re-elected to office as a matter of courtesy and appreciation of
their efforts. If from now on we limit the term of the presidency to one
year I think it would be better. We think it would be desirable to make
the rule that the President shall not be eligible for immediate
re-election, that is, he shall not follow himself. I mention it so that
if this rule is adopted in the revision of our constitution and by-laws
the person who is about to be elected President, and the members of the
association, will understand that there will be nothing personal about
such action.
THE PRESIDENT: In connection with that I should like to say that the
present President has at different times heard suggestions of that kind
made, and I am glad you mentioned it. I wasn't fortunate enough last
year to be at the meeting, as I had to be in St. Louis to help try a
case before the interstate commerce commission, or I should have brought
that up then.
Dr. Morris is absent and Professor Close is the next on the committee on
nominations. Professor Close, will you report?
PROFESSOR CLOSE: I did not know I was the next member and Dr. Morris did
not leave any data with me. However we discussed it and decided to
recommend the election of J. Russell Smith for President, Mr. W. C. Reed
for Vice-President and Dr. Deming for Secretary and Treasurer.
THE PRESIDENT: Any remarks on the report of the nominating committee? If
not, those in favor of adopting the report, thereby declaring the
officers named elected, make it known by rising. (Vote taken.) Contrary
by the same sign. Your officers for the next year will be Dr. J. Russell
Smith, President, W. C. Reed, Vice-President, and Dr. W. C. Deming,
Secretary and Treasurer. I congratulate the association.
Meeting adjourned.
* * * * *
Meeting called to order at 8:30 p. m., at Evansville, Indiana.
PROFESSOR SMITH: The members of this association have always got to be
on the lookout for good parent trees of any and all varieties of nuts. I
think, however, there is a shortage of information in the matter of
walnuts. I have talked to a number of persons and it is the general
opinion that we want to know, and know quickly, more about parent trees
of the Persian walnut. I therefore move that the chair appoint a
committee to give this matter particular attention during the next
twelve months and report at the next annual meeting.
(Seconded and carried)
THE PRESIDENT: The chair appoints the incoming President, C. P. Close
and C. A. Reed.
The next is the question about the place of the next meeting. It occurs
to the chair that it might be desirable to leave that to the executive
committee. But that is a matter for the association to decide and the
chair will entertain motions or suggestions.
MR. C. A. REED: I was going to move that it be left to the committee. I
know from past experiences that is the best course to pursue.
(Seconded and carried.)
COLONEL VAN DUZEE: I would like very much to extend a cordial invitation
to the members of this association to meet with the National Association
at Thomasville, Georgia, in October. We have a program full of merit.
Our meeting will be held in the heart of the nut planting area where all
the pecan planting has been done in the last few years. We have several
fine orchards in the immediate vicinity and matters of general interest
will be discussed. We would be glad to have anybody that can meet with
us, and if you have friends interested in nut culture we will be glad to
have them.
THE PRESIDENT: It is unnecessary to say that the South has forged ahead
of us in pecan culture, and she not only has great pecan orchards but
she has great men who have done this work and they will be at the
meeting of the National Nut Growers. I have had the pleasure of
attending some of these meetings and I can say to the members here it
will be well worth their while to go down there.