ver into
a fine grove owned by another man on the opposite side of the road, and
let him pick out his five acres from the orchard across the road. That's
one type I could multiply indefinitely.

Mr. W. C. Reed: I think this is a very important matter. As a nursery
man who has sold a great many trees to promoting companies, I want to
say that I have never, with one exception, seen an orchard that has been
a success, but I have seen hundreds of failures, some of them where they
have set out orchards of 150,000 trees and sold them off in one and ten
acre tracts, and in only one case have I seen a success. I think these
promotions should be avoided by the nut growers of the North.

The Chairman: This is very valuable information, coming from a dealer.

Mr. Van Duzee: I have found this in the yields of my orchards. Six or
seven or eight years ago, I discounted every source of information that
I could have access to, as to yields, brought them to a conservative
point, submitted them to the best informed men in the United States, and
then divided those figures by five as my estimate of what I might hope
to accomplish as my orchards came into bearing. I have since been
obliged to find some excuses for failing to even approximate those
conservative figures. I had this year in our orchard, a 35 acre plot of
Frotscher trees which is one of the most promising varieties, six years
of age, and there were not five pounds of nuts in the whole plot. I have
had an orchard of 36 acres, mostly Frotscher and Stewart, go through its
sixth year with less than 200 pounds of nuts to the entire orchard. I
have another orchard of 30 acres which in its sixth year has produced
less than 100 pounds of nuts. Now many of these promoters guarantee to
take care of these orchards, which they are selling, for 10 per cent or
20 per cent, or even half the proceeds of those orchards, from the fifth
year. You can see readily that the entire crop of such orchards as I
have been able to produce, would not begin to pay their running expenses
the sixth and seventh year.

The Chairman: You took good care of yours?

Mr. Van Duzee: I think so. I think there are many gentlemen in the
audience who have been through them, and it is conceded that my orchards
are at least fairly good representatives of what can be done under
normal conditions.

Mr. Corsan: Are yours southern orchards?

Mr. Van Duzee: These pecan orchards are in south-western Georgia.

Mr. Corsan