During the whole of this period of early American nut growing history, little attention in any part of the country was paid to the native nuts.  However, in the southeastern part of the United States there existed a large portion of the country to which no choice species of nut trees were either indigenous or had been introduced.  Necessity, curious interest, and, more probably intelligent purpose, prompted sea captains, plying from West to East Gulf Coast ports, Easterners returning home from visits in the West, Westerners visiting in the East, and no doubt nomadic bands of Indians, to carry pecans from the Mississippi River and beyond, to the coast of Mississippi, to Alabama and the South Atlantic States, where they were planted as seed.  For fully a century the species gradually spread over the plains sections of the eastern Gulf and South Atlantic States.  In 1846, according to Taylor (William A.) in the Yearbook (Department of Agriculture) of 1904, a Louisiana slave succeeded in grafting a number of pecan trees.  So far as can now be learned, really intelligent interest in pecan culture began with that date, although history records no further successful propagation of the species until about 1882 when William Nelson began to propagate this variety in his nursery near New Orleans.  Soon afterwards, C. E. Pabst of Ocean Springs, Miss., and E. E. Risien of San Saba, Texas, joined in the pioneer work.  The late Col.  W. R. Stuart of Ocean Springs soon took part by giving publicity to the early varieties.  Gradually, but steadily, choice varieties developed, were propagated and were disseminated.  Orchard planting followed, but did not assume great importance until since about 1905.  The orchards, therefore, were still too young at the time the last census was taken to have been in bearing to any extent.  However, the crop of pecans from the native forests and from single trees left standing in the open space where the forests had been cleared is shown by the census reports to have been the second most valuable of American nut crops in 1909.

In quantity, the production of cultivated pecans is still slight in comparison with that of the wild product or with cultivated walnuts and almonds of the Pacific Coast.  Just now, however, a great many of the orchards, planted this century, are beginning to bear and not improbably the production of cultivated pecans will soon eclipse that of the forest product, and before long will overhaul the lead now held by the Persian walnut.

Thus, briefly, has been the separate history of the principal nuts of this country.  Collectively, the history of American nut culture has been as follows:  Nuts from foreign countries which have been under cultivation for centuries have been more inviting than have the native and undeveloped species, and so have received the major portion of attention in America.  Then too, human nature has shown itself in the greater interest taken by nut planters in foreign nuts instead of those near at hand.  It is in sections remote from their place of origin that many of the leading nuts have attained their greatest degree of perfection.  Thus, the average pecan of the Atlantic Coast is distinctly superior to that of the western Gulf; the Persian walnut scarcely known in Persia is best known in France and in southern California.