Our Noblest Nut
The Souilihnul lias revered and en¬
joyed pecans from Indian limes unlil
this present i*ood season.
tty josiila a. i j;i;
All nuts arc good. so tasty arc they in
fact that I'd hate to take on the task of
persuading citizens to give up their fa¬
vorite for some other kind. Chances
are such an undertaking would degen¬
erate into a procession of shouting
matches with peanut vying with
cashew for example, or with almond
squared off against pistachio. Still I
believe that if something akin to a con¬
sensus should emerge from such a has¬
sle. the pecan would win hands
down, certainly in the Southland
where the pecan is at home. I’d vote
twice for Cur
у
a illinoiensis. as
botanists call the sweet pecan: that is.
if I got the chance.
I’ll just go ahead and admit that I'm
biased toward the pecan, and with
good reason too. I think. I grew up
amid pecan groves in Georgia and
early learned to shake the huge trees
and pick up the nuts for what would be
regarded today as piddling wages. I'll
refrain from admitting my age except
to suggest that I cut my teeth on pecans
at a time when the wages to be earned
from gathering them was a right smart
of change fora boy to be toting around.
I appreciated the soda pop and grab-
bag candy to be had from such labors,
hut for the most part I had to make do
with the diversions to be found right
around home. There was always
plenty of pecans, and I cherish the
memory of cracking and eating them
around the hearth on chill winter eve¬
nings.
Pecan Was Sacred
I also admit to being mildly surprised
to learn that the sweet pecan is not a
native tree in the states along the
Southeastern seaboard where the tree
is now so common. The facts arc that
the pecans grow as a wild species from
the Mississippi valley westward, and
thence northward to the southern bor¬
ders of the Midwest. Thus the trees
growing in North Carolina today stem
from planted nuts, or from budded
nursery stock. The pecan is one of the
many plants ennobled by cultivation,
and selected varieties usually have
larger nuts than wild stock.
Not surprisingly the aboriginal peo¬
ples of the Mississippi valley favored
the pecan, so much so in fact that they
held the nut sacred, the best gift of the
Great Spirit. Pecan stems from
рос-
can. a Choctaw word for the sweet*
meated nut. There is little evidence,
however, that the Indians made any
attempt to cultivate the pecan. Perhaps
there was no need to. Wild trees, some
of them giants 150 feet or more in
height, grew abundantly along the
water courses, and in good years bore
so abundantly that there was plenty for
humans and wildlife alike. In fact, a
large portion of the commercial crop
today is harvested from wild trees.
Petoni ore not notive to North Corolino, but lodging
from the fixe of trees like this one the» ho»c been
here for
о
long time This giont measures 1 2 feet, 4
feet from the ground, ond beors pceons eery yeor,
according to photographer T. H. Peorcc
Most North Corolino peeons for sole come from the
southeastern counties. Popular varieties include
Stuort, Cope Feor ond Moh on, which is the lorgest of
ony. Select nuts which oppeor bright and plump ond
feel "weighty” in the hand
mostly in Texas. Arkansas, and Ok¬
lahoma.
Now modern sophisticates, unlike
those earlier people who lived nearer
to the land, don't hold much with the
idea of declaring things like nuts sa¬
cred. Yet that should not stop anyone
from revering the good things of life.
Thus I. for one. feel compelled to
nominate the sweet pecan to the status
of prince among peers in the nut tribe,
if not the downright king of them all.
Not In Forests
The size of some of the trees growing
in towns and about farmsteads in East¬
ern North Carolina suggests that the
pecan has been in our state for quite a
spell. Perhaps pecans filtered eastward
in primeval times over Indian trade
routes and thus became established on
the eastern seaboard before palefaces
arrived on these shores. That seems
unlikely. Pecans do not thrive in the
forests of our region. Those on farms
abandoned to return to nature become
unproductive, decline and die. There
are some such examples of abandoned
pecan trees in Umstead Park (Wake
County) that are virtually moribund
and have not borne nuts in years.
In our region pecan trees seem to
need the space, manures, driblets -of
commercial fertilizer, and perhaps
minerals to he had around farms and
lawns. Pecans must have traces of zinc
in their nutrition in order to thrive.
North Carolina soils are low in zinc,
and that might account for the pecan's
inability to adapt in our forests. True,
one Can occasionally find a pecan tree
growing by a branch head on the edge
of a cultivated field, or along some
country lane where a jaybird or a crow
14
THE STATE. NOVEMBER 1978
