Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-11-09

land clearer il that the nuts are small
thick-shelled and not of first class
| quality. All Of this is against the tree J.,
| of course, but not enough against it to
| justify its destruction with the rest OF
| the forest growth. Clearing up the sur
roundipgs and giving it a fair chance
may lead to q marked improvement in
| the character of its fruit; besides, should
| this prove otherwise, an abundant yield
| OF nuts, even of inferior grade, would be
worth something to the owner. There
| could be no pecaus SO inferior that they
would not go off on the market at some
figure, and that figure might be reck
in as so much clear gain. since, Us al
ready stated, the tree would not at ~
interfere with the regular crops tSBe
grown upon the same land. ~
If we were putting out q neyTpecan
grove We would be careful to plgnt o4fS
the best thin-shelled varietSs.sS,5$5i
never, in clearing up new ground would
We destroy even an inferior variety al,
ready established. "a bird i'll the hand
is worth two in the bush. - If We wanA
to plant that particular ground to he
pecans we d pu; IN the fine pecans but
leave the "old timers alone in thSae
glory all the same, promising for our
sell OF iOE our ueIEs tutt tue OIl ltlueIS
should be cut out of the way after the
fancy stock had established itself aud
proveI up its good character, but not be-
fore.
The time is not far in the future that
shall see the pecan reekoned Us one Of
our scarcest aud most highly valued pro-
ducts. The American people were slew
to appreciate the true worth of thing so
long as 1t is n spontaneous product aud
free to all; but the days of wild and free
pecans are now about over. If the wild
pecan trees had been respected in earlier
times, rs they should have been, those
days need never have been over, but here
we have i'll the way that iucorrigible
cit The writer OF this was never Il
Texas bow, and now never can be, but
he went through his boyhood in a state
where the pecan grew as Wild forest
tree. Those boyhood times of his were
long ago, but be still well remembers
how the pecan tree Jared along about
then. We went to the river bottoms
pecan hunting every fall. We went as
little crowd, and some of us were armed
with axes the use of which we well un-
derstood. When We found u pecan tree,
no matter how large, that appeared to
have upon IL so much as a peck of pc
cans, il was a doomed tree. II had
pro badly borne that many pecans each
season through a hundred years in the
past, and if left al ne would possibly
bear that many or more for a hundred
years yet to come, but we never gave
thought to that matter. Four Of US went
at 1t, axe in hand, right and left, while
the girls stood at a safe place, out of the
lean of the tree, and disputed over which
of the four choppers got out the biggest
chips. Soon there was ''sniggliDg'' at
the heart of the old pecan tree, then
"snapping, - then a sway to one side,
then ''swash' and a 'crash. - The Did
tree had produced its last peck of pecaus,
and all hands were soon frisking about
among it's PROSTATE and still quivering
branches merrily harvesting its farewell
crop.
In those early times we were all free
Americans-eyerythin was looked upon
as free to everybody. Under the work.
ings of that peculiar freedom the old
pecan groves melted away little by little
until now the wild pecan is almost ex-
clusively the property of Texas. And
even here it is rapidly passing in its
checks, Judging from the lights before
us. How very wrong! How very
strange! WHY, we certainly ought to
hold on persistently to everything nature
has given us in the pecan, aud to add to
that gift all we possibly could through
artificial means.
We often read with wonder the mar
velous tales told of the olive in the old
world-how aged the trees become, how
profitable they are, and all that sort of
thing. Do the people over there read
any such tales about our pecan? If not,
why not? The pecan is a tree of fully as
long life as the olive, and counting the
value of its product in dollars and cents
it is decidedly more profitable. We'd go
our full length at growing the olive here
il we could, but we can't; we could all
grow the more profitable pecan if we
would, but we won't. What q people
are we Americans