er all our wishful
thinking with panaceas and doctrines, we come back to the same
conclusion. Those people with the best foundations built on reason and
truth are those who are nearest the soil and growing things. Those who
work with trees and other living things in nature possess the philosophy
which acts as a breastwork against the forces which would destroy our
society.

We started our propagation of nut trees in 1930 under the guiding hand
of Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. Sawyer and Professor Ray Marsh of the University
of Illinois, and later have had help from Dr. Colby of the University.
We have at present about 2500 grafted pecan trees, a few varieties of
hickories, black walnuts, chestnuts, filberts, persimmons, butternuts,
heartnuts, pawpaws, etc. When people ask me what we expect from our
trees, I tell them that the trees have already paid me in satisfaction
if not in filling my purse. I do expect our nut tree project to give us
a good financial return. The pecan is our leader in Western Illinois as
a popular nut. Much of our Illinois river bottom land, if deserted by
man, would immediately pass back to nature and exist as pecan groves. I
have been working with pecan trees since 1930 and today find myself with
more questions than answers. We are growing at present about 37
varieties of pecans. We are reaching certain notions which we hope are
right. The hybrids are fine and make wonderful trees but I doubt if
they are the answer to our problem. With these remarks I dispose of
further discussion of the Burlington, Rockville, McCallister and Gerardi
varieties.

The Major and Greenriver are excellent performers but are a little late
maturing for us. The Posey nut is slightly earlier and makes an
excellent quality but is not to be compared with Major and Greenriver
for bearing. Our Butterick trees are excellent growers but bear few
nuts. This variety is the poorest bearer that we have. Our earliest
pecans of the better known varieties are Indiana and Busseron, of the
newer varieties, Stephens and Gildig No. 2.

The Giles pecan which Mr. Wilkinson discovered in Kansas is our
outstanding nut for yield, size and early bearing but it should also be
earlier maturing. Although the Giles has been late when grafted on some
of our native trees, it has been early on others. In 1945, which will
always be known by the Illinois weather man as the year without a
summer, we found a great difference in our Major, Greenriver, and Giles
n