n the program yet this
afternoon, but the chair is going to take the liberty of asking the
president of the National Nut Growers Association, Dr. C. A. Van Duzee
to talk to us on any subject that he cares to discuss. I know him well
enough to know that anything he says will be good enough to hear: I know
him personally, the most of you know him by reputation. He has some
pictures here, and I shall take the liberty of passing them around for
you to look at, and I am going to say that these are pictures it
certainly does my heart good to see. They are pictures of his orchard
down South. Just pass them around please.
COL. VAN DUZEE: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I told your
President the first thing when I got in this morning that I didn't care
to have any place on the program; that I would be glad to talk at any
time on any subject he wished me to, and do anything I could to help
along. That puts me in bad to start with. As I have listened to the
discussions of your meeting the thought has come to me that you are
following along very much the same pathway that the southern nut growers
traversed five or six or seven years ago. We are a little further along
in the growing of nut orchards in the South, but you are certainly going
to get along and be abreast of us in time. Perhaps I may be able to do
more good if I confine myself to a few practical suggestions as to how I
think nut orchards can best be produced. Those pictures represent an
orchard which I have in southwestern Georgia and have grown under
adverse conditions. The pictures show the culmination of years of
earnest effort. They represent what I consider to be a very reasonable
success from a practical standpoint. I am a farmer and the first thing I
require of my farm is that it shall pay. I have no theories; I have no
ideals but those which must stand that test. I am in farming to make it
a success; it is my business and everything I do must stand that test.
If it doesn't pay it is not successful. That orchard represents the
culmination of years of study of the problem of how to grow a pecan
orchard on my ranch. That bunch of hogs represents about one hundred and
fifty we selected about three weeks ago to put in our early peanut patch
down there to finish them up as pork, but it does not show my breeders
or young stock. I could talk hogs to you until the cows come home. I set
my mark a year ago last spring, after being twice wiped out by the
cholera, I set
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