a berry; and he
had the evidence, because the parent pecan tree stood right there, and
the China berry was the other parent tree! He wanted world wide
attention called to that. They were taken to the botanist, and he
recognized them as one of the ordinary soap berries. There was a similar
case this fall. A gentleman in Texas exhibited some nuts at the State
Fair at Dallas that he said were a hybrid between the mocker-nut, the
common hickory there in Texas, and the pecan. He said that the parent
trees stood near one another and that the pecan blossomed some years
about the same time that the hickory did, and in those years the hickory
nut was long, and in other years it was short. Somebody sent one of the
nuts to Mr. Taylor, Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry. He
sent the nut on to me, and I looked it up. I struck Texas on one of
those cold wave days, and drove five miles out and back in a Texas
livery rig, and found an ordinary hickory that bore nuts just a little
different from others. That is one way the Department is called upon to
ferret these things out.

Mr. Littlepage: I would like to ask Mr. Reed what information he has as
to the success of pecans bearing when grafted or budded on other
varieties of hickory? I say that because I know from traveling around
through the country that there is a widespread impression that it is
possible to have very extensive pecan orchards throughout the North by
topworking the wild hickory. I have had some little experience along
that line, but I don't know what the facts are; and Mr. Reed has made an
extensive trip recently for the Department of Agriculture, collecting
data in reference to the pecan.

Mr. Reed: The present situation, so far as we have been able to gather
the information, is just this. The pecan has been grafted on a good many
species of hickory, all the way from Virginia south to Florida, and west
to Texas; but rarely ever can we find an instance in which they have
produced satisfactorily after they have come to a bearing stage. We find
that they unite readily ordinarily, and grow rapidly; but the pecan
eventually proves to be a more rapid grower than the hickory, and when
it catches up and is the same diameter, then the pecan growth is slower,
and while they bear a little the first few years, later on they are not
productive. I don't wish to say that is final, but it has been the
experience so far. You will find most enthusiastic advocates of pecan