One remarkable fact about the improved paper shell pecan is that it is at the same time richer in protein and fat than other nuts, yet is more digestible. People who say, “I cannot eat nuts because I suffer from indigestion,” are surprised to hear of pecans being prescribed by physicians—until they try the Paper Shell Pecan themselves and find that it agrees even with the invalid. Unlike other nuts which contain less fat—it can be eaten in quantity without salt without any ill effect. This is probably due to the fact that the improved pecan contains an oil which seems to possess many of the lubricating and healing qualities which are found in olive oil.

The digestibility of pecan fat is an established fact—pecans are used largely at such scientifically conducted sanitaria as those at Battle Creek as a substitute for meat and corrective diet in troublesome cases of intestinal derangement.

Consider the many fortunes made in olive oil—then remember that even if scientific research should show that pecan oil is not so beneficial as olive oil, the pecan has many manifest advantages in its more appetizing form, assurance of cleanliness and purity, etc., which makes its future promising.

No authority has ever questioned the nutritive value of the pecan. Even the wild pecan, which is far inferior in nutritive qualities to the Paper Shell Pecan, has received high recommendation from eminent authorities. But the fact that this nutriment was locked up within a hard shell, separated by a partition so strong and bitter that it was seldom possible to get out a satisfactory kernel, kept the wild pecan from enjoying the wide popularity it deserved. The introduction of the improved seedling and paper shell varieties not only led to an interest in these improved varieties, but caused such an increased demand for all pecans that prices rose on even the poorest wild pecans. But the public found that the best pecans are the cheapest in the end—and the demand for pecans has increased most rapidly on these grades from which the largest kernels, containing the utmost in nutritive value, could most easily be removed whole.

From one of the largest nut-tree nurserymen in the world:

“The demand for pecans of all descriptions is increasing faster than the supply.... The large pecans that we raise bring from 50 cents per pound up to $1.25. We do not think that the price will ever drop a great deal, though a great income can be had even at 25 cents per pound or even lower if trees are ten or more years of age. If one had $1,000 to invest he would be satisfied with 7%, which is $70, yet five or six trees will bring in this income. There are no diseases or insects that are bad on the pecan, nothing like as bad as with the apple, peach, etc., nothing that is anywhere near ruinous. Pecan trees are naturally a wild tree and therefore very hardy.”