nd effrontery for me to attempt to
treat this subject in particular since it has been so clearly and ably
done by Col. C. A. Van Duzee of St. Paul, Minn., and Viking, Fla., from
the standpoint of long experience and full knowledge. His paper should
be read by all interested persons. I am permitted to make the following
quotations from it:

"The pecan as an orchard tree has recently been discovered and its
history has not been written. The record at present is largely based on
scattered individual trees growing under abnormal conditions which, as a
rule, are favorable....

"Calculations and deductions based upon these results have been made
which are fascinating, but they are utterly unreliable when applied to
orchards of other trees in different localities growing under totally
different conditions?...

"No one knows what a pecan orchard grown under such conditions is going
to do."

Col. Van Duzee, however, expresses firm belief in the success of pecan
growing under proper personal supervision.

It all comes down to the question, "Can you or I hire our business done
for us, never go near it ourselves and expect others to make a success
of it for us?"

And yet, when all is said, I confess that I have been tempted by my
faith in the present and future of pecan growing in the South. I might
have invested were it not for my firm belief that, in nut growing, the
North is but a few years behind the South, and that I wish to devote my
resources and my energies to having a hand in a development which, I
share with you the belief, is to be of inestimable benefit to the human
race. We can picture the day when our dooryards, our roadsides, our
fields and hills shall be shaded by grand nut trees, showering
sustenance and wealth on our descendants, and all people, and bearing
the names of their originators; when the housewife of the future shall
send her wireless call to the grocer for a kilo of Hales' Papershells,
the Rush, the Jones, the Pomeroy Persian walnuts, the Black Ben Deming
butternut, the Craig Corean chestnut, the Morris Hybrid hickory, the
Close black-walnut or the Littlepage pecan.

* * * * *

President Morris: It is a very timely paper. The number of promoters we
find in connection with any subject furnishes an index of the
fundamental value of the original proposition. The number of dishonest
people, the number of fakirs that are now promoting development schemes
in connectio