In the planting of trees for most purposes, it is now possible to exercise practically the same degree of choice with regard to special fitness as is employed in the selection of men for positions or tools for a piece of work. The fruit grower in every part of the country has his special species and pomological varieties from which to choose. The foresters and landscape gardeners have their species and botanical varieties or improved strains to pick from. Among the important purposes for which trees are planted the production of native nuts is singularly behind. The leading species of native nut-bearing trees include the hickories, the walnuts, the chestnuts, the pines, and the beech. Of these, one of the hickories, the pecan, is the only species which has so far been developed by cultivation as to become of importance for the production of an orchard product. The timber of the pecan is less valuable than is that of most other hickories, and is in commercial use only as second-class material. However, it is the most important species of nut-bearing tree in the United States. Its native and introduced range includes the fertile lands of the plains of practically the entire southeastern quarter of the country. It is neither an upland nor a wet land tree. In the United States it is not found in the mountainous sections, nor, to any important extent, south of Middle Florida. In Mexico, it is occasionally found on mountain sides at considerable elevations and by some is supposed to be there indigenous. However, according to "Pomological Possibilities of Texas," written by Gilbert Onderdonk, of Nursery, Texas, and published by the State Department of Agriculture in 1911, its success at those altitudes is vitally dependent upon the water supply. In each case investigated by Mr. Onderdonk, while upon official trips made for the United States Department of Agriculture, he found the pecan trees to be adjacent to some stream, either natural or artificial. "At Bustamente," says Mr. Onderdonk, "one hundred and seven miles beyond Laredo, are pecan trees two hundred years old that have been watered all their lives and have continued productive. From these trees, grown from Texas pecans, pecan culture has been extended until there are now thousands of thrifty pecan trees under irrigation. One owner of a small lot sold his water right when his trees were about seventy-five years old, and when the writer visited his grounds fourteen years later, every one of his trees was either dead or dying."