as follows: 1906—eight bushels; 1908—six bushels; 1910—twelve bushels; 1912—nine bushels; making thirty-five bushels in all. The tree is an every-other-year bearer, but has borne lighter crops of from one to three bushels in its off years: and as far back as I have known the tree, it has borne a good crop every other year and a light one between. After 1912 the land changed hands and the owner has gathered this tree, but kept no definite record except the crop of 1922, which was 600 pounds." This tree was 90 feet high, 100 feet spread, trunk four feet in diameter. An acre could only hold three of them,
Such trees are not very common, but there have probably been thousands like it; and there are now probably hundreds of them alive and bearing at this moment.
An observer in Texas says, "Native trees here have a habit of producing a full crop about once in two years. Many native trees have a record of over five hundred pounds' production in one year."[1] Claims apparently authentic are made for trees that yield a thousand pounds and even more.[2] The variation in the yield of supposedly meritorious trees under definite test
- ↑ F. R. Brison, County Agent. Coöperative Extension Work in Agricultural and Home Economics. San Saba, Texas, letter. February 14, 1925.
- ↑ Mr. M. Hull, Assistant Morticulturist, Louisiana State University, reports in Americun Nut Journal, October, 1926, p. 57, that a pecan tree twenty feet in circumference, at waist height, is one hundred and fifty years old, has a spread of one hundred and thirty-two feet, and has borne approximately sixteen hundred pounds of nuts in one season. It grows on the farm of G. B. Reuss at Hohan Solms, Louisiana, about thirty miles south of Baton Rouge. The local postmaster said, with apparent sincerity, that it had borne twenty-seven hundred pounds. (Information, Mr. C. A. Reed, U. S. Department of Agriculture.) In 1925 Mr. Felix Hermann went before a notary at Bexar, Texas, and swore that he had gathered twenty-two hundred pounds of pecans from a tree with a spread of two hundred and twenty feet. Commenting on, this. Mr. F. W. Mally. County Agent, at San Antonio, who had not seen the tree, said, "However, I may say that while this is more or less an exceptional tree, there are a great number of very large pecan trees along the banks of the rivers in this territory. Whether they are as large as this one is not known because they have not been measured. It is not unusual for many of these large trees to produce from twelve to fifteen hundred pounds of nuts in a season, and they would probably reach a ton if they were all gathered and weighed."
