ER AND CONDITION OF SAMPLES.

All samples submitted for judging shall be fair average samples of the
crop and not selected specimens. They should he tree-ripened, and should
be thoroughly cured before judging. Polishing, coloring or other
manipulation to disqualify:

_Size_--The nuts should be large and reasonably uniform in
size; nuts running smaller than 100 per pound, to be
disqualified.

_Form_--The nuts should be symmetrical in form and reasonably
smooth of surface.

_Color_--The shell should be bright and clear in color without
excess of surface markings.

_Thinness_--the shell should be sufficiently thin in proportion
to size of nut to crush readily.

_Cracking Quality_--The shell should be brittle and should
separate readily from the kernel leaving it clean and in
perfect halves.

_Plumpness_--The kernel should fill the shell and must be
smooth, externally, with solid meat of fine and uniform
texture, free from internal cavities and with high relative
weight of kernel to shell.

_Color_--The kernel should be uniformly bright and attractive
in color.

_Quality_--The flavor should be sweet and rich, free from
bitterness or astringence of either meat or skin.

PART III.

Cultural.

CHAPTER VI.

PROPAGATION OF THE PECAN.

The pecan tree is difficult of propagation by budding or grafting.
Skillful propagators are satisfied with seventy-five per cent. of living
buds or grafts, while very many have to be content with less. The
difficulty is due, in part, to lack of skill; in part to lack of
judgment in selecting good material with which to work; but in some
regions it is due to the attacks of the bud-worm, _Proteopteryx
deludana_, more than to anything else. The buds are eaten out and
destroyed by this insect at the time they start into growth. In certain
sections spring working of pecans has been abandoned entirely owing to
the destruction wrought by this pest. But notwithstanding all the
drawbacks, pecan trees can be, should be and are propagated in large
numbers by budding and grafting, and the seedling is becoming more and
more a thing of the past.

SEEDLING VS. GRAFTED TREES.

It is a fact worthy of note that the beginning of every tree-fruit
industry is marked by the use of seedling trees. In the later stages of
the development of the industry the seedling, owing to a more in