Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-01-31
SOME FILIAL DEFENsE.

In THE GAZETTE of the 1st of January you
/ publish an extract of 4 letter from my
| father, William Watson, to MIR. Holland Of
Farm and Ranch, on transplanting pecan
| trees. In your editorial comments on it
you claim that pecan trees will not succeed
| transplanted, but say ''of course it is to the
interest of the nurseryman to sell trees for
transplanting,'' thus intinating that my
father wrote that letter to Farm and Ranch
for the purpose of inducing people to buy
| nursery-grown pecan trees.
In this you do him 4 great injustice. You
ought to have been far enough to have
said, as Farm and Ranch said, that the ex-
tract was from q private letter. My
father is practical fruit grower as well
as nurseryman. He has been engaged in
that business since 1852 here in this
county, and ought to know something, by
this time, about fruit growing and general
horticulture. oThe horticultural press
recognizes this fact and repeatedly solicits
him to write articles for publication, but ne
persistently refuses to do so, knowing that
i man in the trade cannot write letters for
publication without people charging him
with seeking free advertising, and writing
from a selfish motive.
Mr.. Holland of Farm and Ranch will tell
you that he has time and again requested
my father TO write papers for publication in
the Farm and Ranch, and that he has al
ways declined to do so.
Mr.. Holland requested my father to write
an article for the special horticultural edi-
ton of Farm and Ranch for January l, but
my father declined to do so, and in the
letter declining to write a paper for publ
cation he alluded TO this pecan question,
but he never thought that Mr.. Holland
would publish any part OF this private
letter, hence he could not have had a sell
fish motive in claiming that pecan trees can
be transplanted.
Strong evidence can be produced to prove
that pecan trees trausplanted Will succeed,
but as my father is in the nursery business
| suppose l viii be ruled out as biased
witness, although have no pecan trees for
sale myself, and have no direct interest in
my fathers nursery business. I ask you to
kindly publish this letter in justice to my
father. DAVID II. WATSON.
Brennan, Tex.
If our correspondent will refer back to
the article mentioned by him he will find
that good deal of stretching will be ne
cessary ere it can be made to well fit this
letter of his. We fully agreed with Mr.
William Watson in every statement made
by him in that extract from ''private let
ter, - but of course no longer private after
it had Sound place in the columns of Farm
and Ranch. We then entirely left Mr..
Watson and went on to detail our own
and observation relative to the
pecan, and finally wound up with the ex-
preston attributed to US, without so much
as having Mr.. Watson at all in mind. In
deed, we did not even then know that Mr..
Watson was still practical nurseryman.
The reference made to him by Farm
and Ranch as ''the venerable nurseryman'
led US Ito suppose that he had been |
a nurseryman, but left US no means Of |
knowing that he was practical nursery |
man still. Nor was that expression thrown |
against any nurseryman, but rather an ex-
preston of regret on our part that it should |
be necessary to take position against nur- /
pecan trees, as witness the fol- |
-ionable quotation: 1--WE wish it were
for nurserymen are a class de-
serving of every encouragement, but the |
interest we feel in having many fine pecan
groves correctly started in Texas, compels |
IS to warn all interested against
to establish groves
with transplanted trees"
IllS nad no reference TO what Mr.. Will
am Watson had said. Mr.. Watson had
iaid pecan trees could be transplanted, and
30 had we, and so say we still. Mr.. Watson
lad not said they would or would not make
groves, and al said TO the effect
hat they would not was entirely our own,
nd could not be referred to anything that
dr. Watson had said.
To make long story short, we will give
as our candid opinion that we don't be-
leVe there is a regular nurseryman in
Texas who would recommend the growth
4 anything that he had reasons for beliey-
lg would not succeed as represented by
i'm They could not afford to do it, and it
5 not at all probable that any of them would
o it if they could