I first planted these nuts in an open garden in St. Paul, but after a year I moved them to my farm, where I set them out in nursery rows in an open field.  The soil there was a poor grade of clay, not really suited to nut trees, but even so, most of the ones still remaining there have made reasonably good growth.  I used a commercial fertilizing compound around about half of these seedlings which greatly increased their rate of growth, although they became less hardy than the unfertilized ones.  After five years, I transplanted a number of them to better soil, in orchard formation.  Although I have only about fifty of the original three hundred seedlings, having lost the others mainly during droughts, these remaining ones have done very well.  Some of these trees have been bearing small crops of nuts during the years 1947 to date.  The most mature nuts of these were planted and to date I have 17 second generation pure pecan trees to testify as to the ability of the northern pecan to become acclimated.

I gave several of the original seedlings to friends who planted them in their gardens, where rich soil has stimulated them to grow at twice the rate of those on my farm.  There were four individual pecan trees growing in or near St. Paul from my first planting, the largest being about 25 feet high with a caliber of five inches a foot above ground.  Although this tree did not bear nuts I have used it as a source of scionwood for several years.  These graftings, made on bitternut hickory stock, have been so successful that I am continuing their propagation at my nursery, having named this variety the Hope pecan, for Joseph N. Hope, the man who owns the parent tree and who takes such an interest in it.

[Illustration:  Shows the use of a zinc metal tag fastened by 16 or 18 gauge copper wire to branch of tree.]

By the year 1950 the tree had such a straggly appearance, although still healthy and growing but being too shaded by large trees on the boulevard, that Mr. Hope caused it to be cut down.  The variety is still growing at my farm, grafted on bitternut stocks and although blossoming it has never produced a nut up to this time.

Another tree given to Joseph Posch of the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, had made even better growth and was luxuriantly healthy and in bloom when it was cut down by the owner because the branches overhung the fence line into a neighbor’s yard.  This was done in about 1950.

Another tree given to Mrs. Wm. Eldridge of St. Paul still flourishes and is quite large (in 1952 at breast height, 6 inches in diameter) but being in a dense shade, it has not borne any nuts.

The fourth tree, given to John E. Straus, the famous skate maker, presumably exists at his lake residence north of St. Paul.  I have not seen it in the last seven or eight years.