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