Part 6

=First.= That the Company is financially strong—a $215,000 corporation, which received its charter in 1911 from the Superior Court of Georgia. Subsequent to the incorporation, the Company purchased what its officers believed to be the finest plantation in Calhoun County for the growth and development of Paper Shell Pecans. The plantation with recent additions, all located around Albany, Georgia, totals nearly 7,400 acres of land, which has been or is to be planted to pecans. From the date of the purchase the Company has expended large sums of money annually upon the development of the property and each passing year sees a greater expenditure upon property development and permanent property improvement. Latest approved methods are sought and applied; and notwithstanding all this the Calhoun County Plantation is subject to a lien of only twenty-seven thousand dollars, the Dougherty County Plantation to only five thousand dollars, the Mitchell County Property to only ten thousand dollars. For the purpose of safeguarding the unit owners a special trustee was appointed whose duty it is to see that the company’s receipts from orchard sales are appropriated to the development of the orchards sold, the planting of new orchards and the reduction of the lien until the same shall have been extinguished entirely. This result will be achieved before the Company shall have conveyed one-half of its orchards—a unique record among modern business concerns. The Trustee plan was specially devised for the protection of Unit buyers, and we know of no Company that has devised a safer plan. It is the result of the most careful consideration given in the interest of the unit buyer. When you are safe, we are safe also.

The books of the Keystone Pecan Co. are audited quarterly by Certified Public Accountants, Vollum, Fernley & Vollum, of Philadelphia, New York and Chicago.

=Second. That the orchards are under capable supervision.= The active officers of the Company were close students of pecan growing for years previous to 1911.

Realizing the fact that the making of profits depends in part on the skill of the orchardist, the Company has employed educated, practical horticulturists who have large pecan groves of their own, where they earned reputations as orchardists that secured them highest recommendations of well known authorities. The fact that such men accepted positions with the Keystone Pecan Company is a tribute to the possibilities of these plantations.

For resident plantation managers they chose pecan men of excellent reputation, who had demonstrated exceptional ability in handling the problem in all its phases.

=Third. That the Company has the character of soil, the kind of budded trees, and the shipping facilities needed to fill the demand for better grade pecans which comes from all over America and abroad.= The immediate district in which our plantations are located is the natural home of the pecan. We have an excellent warehouse site on the Central of Georgia Railroad, at Bermuda Station, a passenger station and warehouse on the Dougherty County Plantation, and all portions of our plantations are favorably located for shipping.

=Fourth.= The Company has demonstrated also that its management is capable and efficient. Every one is interested heartily in the success of the orchards. All are men of unquestioned honor and ability; as inquiry in their home cities will prove. They are, as the following pages show, men old enough and experienced enough to capably manage the business, yet young enough to retain their business capacity and vigor for many years to come.

=Fifth.= That a marketing organization has been developed which has successfully sold paper shell pecans all over the world, and that the demand for these superior pecans far exceeds the supply.

“The Supply Will Never Equal The Demand”

_From the former President of the Albany, Ga., Chamber of Commerce_, J. A. Davis, we hear: “The strongest evidence of my belief in the future of this wonderful development is that I have just planted a grove of one hundred acres. I know of no agricultural or horticultural industry which, with proper attention, holds promise of returns half so large as the pecan in Southwest Georgia. Both our soil and our climate are peculiarly adapted for the production of the finest nuts in most abundant yield. These nuts are the size and quality which make them absolutely the finest nut on the market. They will always command a fancy price because the supply will never equal the demand.”

ELAM G. HESS

President of the Keystone Pecan Company

and Pennsylvania State Vice President of the National Nut Grower’s Association, is a resident of Manheim, Lancaster Co., Pa., and is well and favorably known, not only throughout Lancaster County, but in many parts of America. Mr. Hess, who is forty-three years of age, worked on his father’s farm in Lancaster County until he was eighteen years of age. He taught public school for five years, prepared for college at Perkiomen Seminary, graduating in 1902, and in 1906 graduated from Gettysburg College. He had acted as a traveling salesman during his summer vacations for Underwood & Underwood, New York, and had built such a reputation for fair dealing among the best class of trade that he was appointed field manager, along with Mr. Thomas F. Miller. After serving in this capacity for two years, he was sent to England to represent the same company.

In his travels he was impressed with the opportunities which existed for finer grade pecan nuts, and began to make an exhaustive study of their production and their selling possibilities—one result of which has been the formation of the Keystone Pecan Company.

Mr. Hess devotes his entire time to the success of the Company, and is an acknowledged authority on pecan nuts, their growth and their marketing.

Reference: Keystone National Bank, Manheim, Pa.

L. B. Coddington

First Vice President of the Keystone Pecan Company

is a resident of Murray Hill, New Jersey, where he has been successfully engaged in the Wholesale Rose Growing Industry for twenty-four years. The cut flowers from his greenhouses are sold wholesale in New York City and Brooklyn and nearby towns. He is well known as one of the largest rose growers in the United States.

Note Mr. Coddington’s letter on page 59.

Reference: Summit Trust Co., Summit, N. J.

Enos H. Hess

Second Vice President of the Keystone Pecan Company

lives on the farm on which he was reared—R. F. D. No. 3, Lancaster, Pa. He is 50 years of age. He is noted as a truck farmer, selling his own products to Lancaster City consumers at famous Lancaster Markets, which he attends twice a week.

Formerly a director of the Ideal Cocoa Company, Lititz, Pa.

Reference: Farmers Trust Co., Lancaster, Pa.

Willis G. Kendig

Director of the Keystone Pecan Company, and Corporation Counsel

is the well known corporation lawyer of Lancaster. He is widely known as a lawyer of keen discrimination regarding commercial enterprises, and the fact that he and so many associates from the richest agricultural county in the United States place their money in this Georgia pecan orchard is evidence of its worth. Mr. Kendig is 45 years of age; the son of a doctor of Salunga, Pa., who also enjoyed a most excellent reputation in his field.

Reference: Fulton National Bank, Lancaster, Pa.

M. G. Esbenshade

Secretary and Treasurer of the Keystone Pecan Company

lives on the farm in Lancaster Co. on which he spent his boyhood days. (R. F. D. No. 3.) He is noted throughout the county and beyond as a successful grower of tobacco. He is 45 years of age, a graduate of Lancaster Business College, a director of the Farmers’ Association of Lancaster County, one of the founders of the Agricultural Trust Co. of Lancaster, of which he is a director.

In his extensive travels throughout the United States he has visited nearly every State. Mr. Esbenshade has received valuable first hand information on the growing and marketing of large food crops—especially nuts. In 1895 he traveled widely in Florida, paying special attention to orange and citrus fruit groves and pineapple fields, and in 1897 he worked with the large growers of wheat in Dakota and California and in the apple orchards of Colorado. In 1905 he made another trip south, studying the groves along the Gulf Coast in which wild and seedling pecans were raised, since which time he has made several trips throughout the South with special reference to Paper Shell Pecans.

Reference: The Agricultural Trust Company of Lancaster, Pa.

B. L. Johnson

Director of the Keystone Pecan Company

resides at Allentown, Pa., and has been Sales Manager for that district—embracing important counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey—for the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, a $16,500,000 corporation, which is known all over the world. Mr. Johnson is known throughout the Allentown district as a self-made man, who has, at an early age, held positions of trust and responsibility because of his earnest and efficient work and his remarkable business judgment.

Reference: Penn Counties Trust Co.

Joseph Seitz

Director of the Keystone Pecan Company

is a native of Lancaster Co., residing at Mountville, Pa., formerly a farmer, now a dealer in leaf tobacco.

Reference: Northern National Bank of Lancaster, Pa.

From a commercial standpoint the pecan is by far the most important of native nuts. Its smooth shell, attractive appearance, abundant production, plump kernels, which are usually extracted with ease, and high quality are largely accountable for its popularity. Page 23, Bulletin 160, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.

Thomas F. Miller

Sales Manager of the Keystone Pecan Company

is 46 years of age. A graduate of State Normal School and also of Lebanon Valley College, and taught public school three years. He has had long, successful experience in selling, and was sixteen years in the employ of Underwood & Underwood, and was associated with Elam G. Hess, President of the Company, as Field Manager, appointing and drilling hundreds of successful salesmen for their Travel System. He resides in Allentown, Pa.; member of the Chamber of Commerce, of Allentown, and is favorably known as a man of high ability and good reputation.

Reference: Merchants National Bank.

A. S. Perry, Field Secretary, Keystone Pecan Co.

_A. S. Perry_, Field Secretary of the Keystone Pecan Company, is not only one of the best known pecan experts in America, but is also thoroughly in touch with the best pecan land in Southwest Georgia, of which he is a native. For practically a hundred years his family has lived or owned land in Calhoun County—his grandfather’s farm being only ten miles from our Calhoun County Plantation.

Was educated at the Southwest Georgia Agricultural and Military College (a branch of the State University) and also at Emory University. In addition to his general and agricultural education, he studied law and was admitted to practice in all courts of Georgia—specializing in Commercial Law.

Has had much practical experience in pecan growing—orchards near Cuthbert, established by Mr. Perry, are recognized as of such high grade that his services have been in great demand for establishing new orchards, top working old seedling orchards to paper shell pecans and similar expert horticultural work. In addition to the National Nut Growers’ Association, of which he has been elected secretary for the fourth successive term, he is a member of the Georgia-Florida Pecan Growers’ Association, Georgia Horticultural Society and Alabama Horticultural Society, and is in demand as a speaker on pecan culture before these organizations.

Reference: Georgia Bank and Trust Co., Cuthbert, Georgia.

Our Vice President and Sales Manager Have Both Added to Their Holdings on Our Plantation During the Past Year

Read Their Letters Below

Why Mr. Coddington, Vice President of the Keystone Pecan Company, Bought More Units

Murray Hill, N. J., Oct. 1st, 1919.

_My Dear Mr. Hess_:

After spending last Saturday and Monday inspecting the entire plantation, I am highly pleased with the progress made since my last inspection.

The trees of this year’s planting have taken hold in a remarkable fashion—the growth made since last March is so wonderful that it is hard to believe.

The trees of the preceding year’s plantings look well, but the greatest surprise of all was the earlier plantings. The trees in Block 1 A, for instance, prove the advantages of the Keystone Medium Height Pruning System. In many cases they have made five to six feet growth since they were pruned last Spring—and the thickening of the trunks and all the branches proves that those trees will be well able to carry heavy heads and bear large crops of pecans.

In the old bearing orchard the foliage was of the same healthy deep green color noted all over the plantation. But the best proof of their vigor was the fact that on many of these trees all the branches were loaded down with big nuts, nearly ripe.

After a lifetime contact with growing things, I am so well pleased with the conditions on the plantation that I have, as you know, purchased additional units.

L. B. CODDINGTON.

Why Mr. Miller, Our Sales Manager, Bought Seven Additional Units

968 Jackson St., Allentown, Pa., Dec. 29, 1919.

_Dear Mr. Hess_:

In May, 1915, I wrote you that my interest in this new industry and my ambition to some day own a pecan orchard dates back before the Keystone Pecan Co. was in existence. My study of this improved nut, its food value, the whole world to supply, its advantage over other tree crops, in harvesting, packing, shipping, not perishable, beside the long life of the trees and the small expense of up-keep after the fifth year, and the wonderful yield satisfied me that it was the safest and most profitable industry I know.

When you conceived and formed the Keystone Pecan Company with its co-operative plan, I saw my opportunity, and invested and purchased Units. Having been in business with you for so many years and knowing your capacity to plan big business and your ability to carry your plans to perfection, also the other members of the Company being known as clean, honest and progressive business men, gave me entire confidence. When you wanted me to become sales manager, I decided to visit the plantation. In company with some of my friends, I made my first visit. We were delighted, beyond expression, with everything. Competent management seemed to be working out a perfect system.

Now, after nearly five years of continual work with you in selling the Keystone Pecan Orchard units, I want to compliment you more strongly than ever on the way you have planned and are making good. The progress has been beyond our most sanguine expectations. Each year I have visited the plantation from one to three times accompanied in every case by Unit Owners. My friends have always been well pleased with what they saw on their orchards, but the marked progress the past year, under your expert plantation organization, is such as to fire every Unit Owner with the desire to own more units, fertilized, pruned, cultivated and cared for under your system.

A total of over 200 additional units have been purchased during the past year by unit owners who have visited the plantation with me. Many of these purchased their first units two, three, or four years ago, before visiting the orchards. This is the strongest evidence that the conditions on the plantation must be right. I was glad I could add seven more units to my own number during the past year, and hope to further increase my holdings. I can see now why Mr. William P. Bullard, your horticulturist, expressed surprise that the Company was selling these units at so low a figure.

THOS. F. MILLER.

William P. Bullard, Horticulturist on our Calhoun County Plantations

Of William P. Bullard, the American Nut Journal of Rochester, N. Y., said: “He is a grower of many years’ active practical experience, and is familiar with all the problems of production and selling from the growers’ standpoint.”

Mr. Bullard is widely known as a careful, conservative man, who emphasizes the importance of thorough cultivation and fertilizing during the first five years, in order to establish orchards that will produce beyond the average. The favorable reputation of this large company and its well known desire to produce superior orchards for its unit owners, naturally draws to it experts of big calibre and broad experience. (See letter of Rev. Lutz, page 50.)

Reference: Georgia National Bank, Albany, Ga.

On these Calhoun County Plantations, we have as resident horticulturists and orchard managers, W. J. Moran and G. W. West, practical pecan men of long experience, and with the proven ability to produce orchards up to the highest standards. Mr. Moran has been in pecan orcharding since boyhood, having been first associated with the Simpson Nursery Co. and later having developed one of the finest orchards in the district; Mr. West is an excellent manager of large bodies of farm labor, with long experience in pecan tree cultivation.

The pruning of the older trees and the budding of the seedling trees in the nursery is all done by O. C. Starks, pruning expert, or under his supervision.

Our Dougherty Co. Organization

R. C. Simpson

R. C. Simpson, President of the Simpson Nursery Company of Monticello, Florida, and C. A. Simpson, Secretary and Treasurer of that Company, are both horticulturists of the highest reputation. They are pecan growers of recognized ability, and this plantation shows the advantages of their thorough skilled supervision.

R. C. Simpson, President of the Simpson Nursery Co., is now 38 years old. Born at Vincennes, Indiana, where both his grandfather and father were leading nurserymen. Graduated from Vincennes University in 1901 and from Cornell University in 1905. While in college he pursued the study of Agriculture, specializing in horticulture, and in 1905 was granted the degree of Bachelor of Science in Horticulture by Cornell University, one of the most advanced agricultural institutions in America.

Went South in 1906 to pursue his practical work in pecan culture and established the nurseries of which he is now the head. His fourteen years of practical experience in pecan growing in the South, backed by his long preliminary training have made him one of the most successful men in America in his line.

Bank Reference: Bank of Monticello, Monticello, Florida.

C. A. Simpson

_C. A. Simpson, Vice President, National Nut Growers’ Association_, and Secretary and Treasurer of the Simpson Nursery Company, was born at Vincennes, Indiana, 1876—is 45 years old. Graduated from Vincennes University in 1895, and from Purdue University in 1898.

Has had business experience in engineering department of large telephone manufacturing company, and was Assistant to Chief Engineer, when he went South in 1911 to become his brother’s partner in the Simpson Nursery Co.

He has had wide experience and is widely known for his skill in propagating pecan trees and developing pecan groves.

Bank Reference: Bank of Monticello, Monticello, Florida.

Our Mitchell County Organization

J. B. Miller, of Baconton, Ga.

whose supervision extends over our Mitchell County Plantation, is a successful pecan grower and business man known throughout this district. He was born in this section, 45 years ago and has had lifelong contact with agriculture of all types in this district. He is among the pioneers in the pecan business, having developed successful orchards and a fine pecan nursery.

He is, in addition, well known as a manufacturer of Naval Stores, and dealer in general merchandise, and is connected with a leading banking institution of Baconton.

J. R. Miller, of Baconton, Ga.

Mr. Miller is a younger brother of Mr. J. B. Miller and has been associated with him in the handling of his farm interests and the development of his pecan nursery and orchard. He is an able business man, 40 years of age. He has acquired a reputation around this district as being one of the most practical farmers and pecan horticulturists and is particularly well versed in field practise and in the supervision of cultivation.

Assistant to the Miller brothers in the cultivation of these orchards is Mr. Dukes, who has had many years of experience in the care and development of pecan orchards and is in addition noted as one of the best experts in South Georgia, in the mechanical cultivation of the tree rows.

Our Lee County Organization

Alexander Pope Vason

_Alexander Pope Vason_ is one of the foremost business men of Albany, Georgia, being president of the Fowltown Farms Company, and of the Albany Warehouse Company; Vice President of the Citizens’ First National Bank of Albany; Director of the Albany Trust Company, and a member of the Albany Board of Aldermen, Board of Education, etc. He is above all a practical horticulturist and farmer, having been the pioneer in the peach growing industry in South Georgia. While a graduate of the University of Georgia, it is as a practical man, able to get the best results from his farm labor, that he is most noted.

James P. Champion

_James P. Champion_, one of the leading business men of Albany, Georgia. He has been identified all his life with agricultural development in this district, having risen to the position of Manager, Secretary and Treasurer of the Albany Warehouse Company, manufacturers of fertilizer, and large cotton factors, because of his rare foresight in regard to farming and horticulture throughout the surrounding district. Was associated in first successful peach orchard in this district, the Vason and Champion Peach Orchard; is Secretary and Treasurer of the Fowltown Farms Company. Has served as Director of the Albany Chamber of Commerce, Chairman of Liberty Loan Committee of County in 3rd, 4th, and 5th drives. Director of Exchange Bank of Albany, Georgia.

Our Lee County Organization

Alva W. Barrett

_Alva W. Barrett_ was born in North Carolina and lived in Florida in his early days. In 1910 became connected with the Albany Grocery Company, of Albany, Georgia, following which date he made most careful study of farms and farming throughout the district, handling up to 1917 a large amount of farm real estate. In 1917 he organized the Consolidated Motor Company, which has become under his management the leading automobile business of Southwest Georgia, continuing his farm development all the while.

He is the owner of the large, successful farms immediately adjoining our Lee County property, and is also a most substantial business man.

He has served as a director of the Albany National Bank and is now director of the Georgia Bank and Trust Company.

C. C. McKnight of Senoia, Georgia