MR. BECHTEL: He had a very small choice nut that he prized very highly and sent me some scions to propagate for him I think about 12 or 14 years ago. I grew them on our native stock shipped them to him. I never followed it up to see what results he had. I think probably those roots may have frozen out if he had severe winters. THE SECRETARY: What he showed me were two of the standard northern varieties, I think Busseron and Indiana, which he had grafted on young trees. In southern Indiana they are doing much better. Grafted varieties are bearing but with Mr. Riehl it is the black walnut and the chestnut with which he is making a success. THE PRESIDENT: The next speaker has for his subject the southern pecan and how its commercial development came about. He comes from the one state in the Union of which I may be somewhat jealous. It is the only state east of the Mississippi River with a larger area than Michigan. (Applause). I take pleasure in presenting Mr. A. S. Perry, of Cuthbert, Georgia, Secretary of the National Nut Growers' Association. GEORGIA'S PECAN INDUSTRY A. S. PERRY, CUTHBERT, GEORGIA My heart thrills with pride and pleasure as I stand in the Capital City of our great nation and bring greetings to the Northern Nut Growers Association from the fertile fields of the far South. I am a southerner to the manner born. For six generations my people sleep in Georgia soil and for an hundred years my family have lived in the Albany district the queenliest section of the far south that rests resplendant as a jewel upon the snowy bosom of her royal mother Georgia and as beautiful as a cluster of fragrant flowers that nestles in the girdle of a lovely woman. My imperial mother Georgia is a land of surpassing loveliness and thus has for ages been the inspiration of poets and painters too. The southerners dream of beauty is the magnolia and who can tint her roses or paint the morning glory that points its purple bugle towards the sky as though to sound the revelie for a waking world. No prima donna has ever yet entertained the crowned heads of Europe with such music as that divine melody with which the mocking bird greets the coming dawn. Ours is a land where skies bend blue and all nature seems to smile; where mosses veil the infirmities of decrepit oaks and vines spring unbidden from the ground to hide the scars of grey old walls; where the grape-vine staggers from tree to tree as though drunk with the purple juice of its own luscious fruit; where flowers lie at your plate on a winter's day and the humblest laborer carries in his dusky hand flowers fit to grace a May queen's crown.