strial bondage and restore her to her rightful place among the
sisterhood of states.

"History repeats itself" says the soldier and there is pictured in his
mind vision of other Shenandoah Valleys swept by the fiery broom of war
and other Atlantas and Savannahs given to the flames on some other
Sherman's March to the Sea.

But history has repeated itself; the North has again invaded the South
but not with drum and fife and armed hosts and has been met not with
shot and shell but with a genuine southern welcome and from this
commingling of northern capital and energy with southern soil and
sunshine has sprung a new industry of such roseate promise as to almost
make the story of Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp fade into insignificance and
Dixie's imperial product, the cultivated paper shell pecan makes her bow
to the world.

French explorers as early as 1740 left authentic records of pecans in
the Mississippi Valley and the many giant pecan trees scattered from
Maryland to Texas which the scientists tell us are hundreds of years old
seem to indicate that the pecan is a native of America whose origin is
lost in prehistoric times.

The earliest financial transaction in pecans that has come to my notice
was in 1772 when William Prince of Flushing, New York, sold in England
eight pecan trees for ten guineas each. These trees were grown from seed
planted by himself.

Prior to 1890 there had been little if any attempt to plant pecans in
orchards but about this time a few scattering seedling orchards began to
appear.

In October 1902 about thirty owners of small pecan orchards met in
Macon, Georgia, and organized the National Nut Growers Association. Of
those pioneer growers only three remain today as active members of the
Association, Theo. Bechtel, H. C. White, and O. P. Mears.

By this time the art of budding and grafting having become reasonably
well known several pecan nurseries came into bearing and orchards of
budded trees began to appear and the foundations of a real industry were
laid. About this time the nursery crook began to appear and sold
thousands of worthless trees but despite this handicap pecan culture
continued to spread and shortly thereafter attracted the attention of
Prof. John Craig of Cornell who after investigation pronounced it safe
sane and profitable. He also made a study of the various sections and
decided that the Albany district was the ideal section for profitable
pecan culture.

This announce