Page:Tree Crops; A Permanent Agriculture (1929).pdf/271

 for twenty full-grown pecan trees to be accommodated on an acre of land. The pecan tree reaches proportions so gigantic that an orchard of trees as large as the largest reported would require more than an acre of ground per tree; yet the first planters put in twenty and often more." "It is almost a universal mistake to put pecan trees too near together. Your idea of having sufficient room for the top of the tree to have sunshine is the correct one. I believe that a good idea is to put trees sixty feet apart, which will make twelve trees to the acre. When these begin to crowd, remove each alternate diagonal row and the trees will be left equally spaced with six trees to the acre. For mature trees this is enough. Furthermore, it is as much as the moisture and fertility of the soil will sustain." (Letter, Wight Nursery and Orchard Company, Cairo, Georgia, July 8, 1927—J. B. Wight. Mr. Wight is one of the leaders and pioneers in southern pecan growing.)

"The pecan is the largest-growing nut tree under orchard cultivation. The average spread of the ordinarily big pecan trees fifty or more years old, favorably located, is probably one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five feet, although maximum trees of materially greater range are not unusual." (Yearbook. U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1926, pp. 571-72.)

Two such trees could not stand and thrive and bear on an acre. They must have sunshine on every branch.

As long ago as 1914 some bona fide growers began planting four trees to the acre, realizing that four big pecan trees would require that much land.

"My opinion is that at twenty years pecan trees will require at least one-eighth of an acre, and more would be better: at thirty years one-fourth of an acre, and soon after that one or two trees to the acre would be quite enough.

"By cutting out every other diagonal row of a fifty-foot planting we have about eight trees left, and by cutting out the alternate trees we would have four. Later on one or more of the least desirable might be removed. I feel that we are suffering greater loss today from crowding in our older orchards than we realize." (Letter, Judson Orchard Farm, Cairo, Georgia, July 24, 1927. C. A. VanDuzee. M.D.)

As factual basis for this conclusion, Dr. VanDuzee, who has kept an amazing lot of actual tree records (facts) gives the following:

"The outside row (23 trees) has the adjoining field to extend its roots into and is exposed to sun and sky on that side; its roots are out in the field one hundred feet; it gave us 3,744 pounds of nuts during the last five years under my care.

"The second row, which divides the fifty-foot space between it and the first row and a similar space between it and the third row for its root pasture, gave us 1,745 pounds of nuts during the same period of time.

"These trees are of the same variety, were planted at the same time, and received practically the same treatment; each tree in the first row has occu-