By this time the art of budding and grafting having become reasonably well known several pecan nurseries came into bearing and orchards of budded trees began to appear and the foundations of a real industry were laid. About this time the nursery crook began to appear and sold thousands of worthless trees but despite this handicap pecan culture continued to spread and shortly thereafter attracted the attention of Prof. John Craig of Cornell who after investigation pronounced it safe sane and profitable. He also made a study of the various sections and decided that the Albany district was the ideal section for profitable pecan culture. This announcement by Prof. Craig was sufficient to induce northern capitalists to begin developing the Albany district on a commercial scale and several companies entered the field planting many thousand acres to be sold in units. As an evidence of the lack of faith on the part of local land owners let me say that a few weeks ago I read the original contract between one of the pioneer development companies and the gentleman from whom they bought their land. This contract was dated early in 1908 and provided for the sale on time payments of several thousand acres of land closing with the limitation that unless as much us 100 acres of this land were planted in pecans and sold in 1920 the contract was to be null and void. As a matter of fact this company developed and sold about 4500 acres in less than five years. They have long since retired as developers and give their entire time to the care of their immense orchards and the sale of their nuts which annually run around two hundred thousand pounds. More than one of these pioneer development companies found themselves in financial difficulties due to the fact that they had sold their orchards too cheaply. Pecan growing is expensive, much more so than the average man thinks and the pecan orchards in the Albany district today that do not meet the expectations of their owners are mostly those that suffered for lack of money. Those companies with financial resources and intelligent horticulturists have developed orchards that are a source of perennial pleasure and profit to their owners. The cultivated paper shell pecan is as superior to the wild seedling as is American gold to Mexico's money. These wild seedlings are small in size artificially colored a bright red and have a sharp, astringent taste and have a commercial value only because they are used to lower the price of mixed nuts.