196 FACTS ABOUT CROP TREES
widespread attempt to control diseases and pests and to solve the cultural problems; establishment of a national pecan experiment station; various state experiment stations to study the industry; and finally a flock of bulletins from many states and from the United States Department of Agriculture.
6. A final stage of the industry has been reached with laboratories for research and experimentation as to the use of the product, and their natural accompaniment of factories for the manufacture of pecan foods for distribution by bottle, carton, and can. This puts it in the rank of established American food industries.
The pecan has arrived. It is not merely prospective or possible as is the case with so many of the things discussed in this book.
The industrial record includes one more phase so typical of new and alluring American industries, namely promotion, speculation, and swindling enterprises. The pecan has been a shining example of this. Yet more, the bringing forward of the pecan has developed a substantial mythology which still has its faithful believers, especially as to where the pecan grows and will grow.
THE NATURAL RANGE OF THE PECAN
Before the white man began to spread the pecan, it was a native tree of a large part of the Mississippi basin south of Iowa. It also grew in the valleys of Texas and the adjacent parts of Mexico."
Eastward of the Mississippi the pecan was found through central Kentucky and Tennessee and in a few parts of Ala 1The pecan was found on the Ohio River from southern Ohio westward; up the Mississippi to southeastern Iowa; and thence southward almost to the mouth of the Father of Waters. In the Missouri River valley it reached the extreme northwestern corner of the state of Missouri. Thence southwestward across eastern Kansas, extending into this state about one hundred and twenty-five miles along the southern boundary. Pecans lined the streams in the greater part of Oklahoma, almost all of the streams of Texas, and on into Mexico.
