The wild pecan has been a popular nut, rivaling, because of its superior flavor, such other nuts as the walnut, chestnut, shellbark, hickory-nut, etc. This popularity was secured despite its many drawbacks—for the shell of the wild pecan is hard and the partition walls between the kernels thick and bitter. There was too little meat and too much difficulty getting it—but the experts saw in the great demand for pecans, despite these disadvantages, =the promise of rich reward for improving the pecan=. [Illustration] [Sidenote: Seedling superior to wild grown Pecan] =The seedling pecan= is the next step toward pecan perfection. Larger than the wild pecan, and thinner shelled, it equals or surpasses it in flavor, depending upon the variety of seedling under consideration. Selling at an average price of 35 to 45 cents per pound, which is double the cost of the wild pecan, it has so much more meat and it is so much more accessible, that it is always a better paying purchase for the housewife. So justly popular has the seedling pecan become that the wise dealer and the discriminating housewife will have nothing to do with the inferior, thick-shelled pecan, which is brightly tinted and polished to disguise the inferiority. The Pecan Makes More Progress Than Other Nuts Made In Centuries “With practically no improvement as a result of culture and breeding, but taken directly from nature, many of the wild pecans afford an exceedingly desirable product. Unconscious, and, therefore, unsystematic selection and planting of pecan seed about dooryards during a period of less than 200 years has developed varieties of such desirable quality that the pecans most successfully compete with other species, like the almond and the walnut which have been under cultivation for many centuries.”—Congressional Record for January, 1917. The Paper Shell Pecan Had the work of experts not gone further than establishing the improved Seedling Pecan, it would have justified all efforts—for the seedling pecan bore justifiable comparison with any other nut on the market in food value and accessibility; until =the Paper Shell Pecan was developed from budded trees=. [Sidenote: The paper shell pecan—the queen of all nuts] The Paper Shell Pecan has an air-tight shell so thin that it is easily broken in one hand by a gentle pressure. Kernel is large, easily removed, of flavor so much finer that any observing person can distinguish it from any other pecan by taste alone. Instead of a bitter partition wall which imbeds itself in the nut when it is cracked, as in the wild pecan, the paper shell pecan has a thin, tissue-like membrane which is easily removed. With the paper shell pecan a larger portion of the total weight of the nut is meat than with any other nut, with the possible exception of the finest almond. And this meat of the paper shell pecan contains seventy per cent. fat, while that of the almond contains but fifty-four per cent.