my mark at fifty thousand pounds of meat from my orchard,
and I want to say I have animals now in the orchard and in the peanut
field together to make that and a little margin to the good. I expect
our orchard will produce this year more than fifty thousand pounds of
hams, bacon and lard. The reason I am talking about this is that I want
to emphasize the fact that the growing of nut trees is a business
proposition. I want to say, in passing, that I believe no better thing
could happen to the people who live in America than that every man who
owns land might plant a few nut trees. It is a notorious fact that the
nut trees which do the best, and which make the most money for the man
who plants them, are the ones planted in the garden and immediately
about the home where the conditions are favorable for the best
development. It is also true that all the successful pecan promotions
that have been put over on the American people have been built upon the
records of those individual trees, which were grown under the most
favorable conditions. That is the source of all that magnificent
literature, and all these people that have been inveigled into these
promotions in the South are going to be disappointed. That orchard in
the photographs is eight years of age, or will be this year, as it was
planted seven years ago last February. It has never paid a dollar of
profit. You won't find any literature on nut orcharding in the South
that will convey any such impression as that. I do expect it to pay this
fall a small margin of profit. I won't attempt to explain all that but
will say that an orchard must be eight or ten years of age before you
may expect or hope for a reasonable profit. After that it ought to pay
well. It is well worth going after because it is one of the most
legitimate, safe, satisfactory business opportunities we have ever
found. I don't know anything that pleases me more as a business man than
the growing of a large orchard of nut trees, and I assure you,
gentlemen, you must bring to that orchard the same degree of skill,
energy and patience that must be brought into any large business
proposition to make it a success. My own idea is that the nut orchard is
a legitimate part of the general farming operation. If you travel from
one end to the other of this country you will see that it is covered
with apple orchards. Small apple orchards were a part of the original
farming operations. The fact that they have been negl