the bulletin
board
Pecan Plant: Cracking Pecans
Medium: Black
and white photograph
Source: Photo archives of the Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt Institute,
Hyde Park, New York
Workers in a
typical pecan plant in San Antonio in the 1930's. These workers are using manual
tools to crack raw pecans. Although it usually took years to acquire the
skill of applying precise pressure to each size and variety of pecan in order
not to break the nut meat, the average pay for a cracker was from $5 to $6 a
week.
The pecan
festival in beautiful downtown Alto
Any place with a five-digit zip code seems to have some
sort of annual festival these days to attract tourists. In some places,
there are festivals for every season and every occasion. Well, that's
simply not the case for Alto's annual pecan festival. The official name is
the "Alto Annual Pecan Festival," but we opt to just call it the pecan festival
because that's exactly what it is. We have great pecan trees, and we have
the festival so that the buyers and sellers can be in the same place at the same
time. Our pecan festival isn't patterned after any sort of new, glitzy
concept, but rather a plain, old-fashioned market place--nothing more.
In years past, before the advent of irrigation and range farming, Alto
turned out bumper crops of cotton and tomatoes. Timber, cotton and
tomatoes drove the economy. These days, the cotton and tomatoes have moved
to flatter ground where irrigation is a necessity and high tech crop-tending and
harvesting equipment have all but replaced the human element in farming. In our
community, oil and gas and cattle and chickens have just about replaced the
field crops, but our trees still reign.
Yes, our trees are ever present,
and we have many, many sorts. From tall, straight majestic pines, to
centuries old oaks, to the bearers of fruit and nuts, they're very much a part
of our culture, our lives, and our community's natural beauty. For a long,
long time, our people have taken to the woods on the first weekend in November
to participate in what is certainly for our town's most celebrated ritual--the
opening of deer season. On that weekend, the streets are full of
people, and a significant number are visitors.
So... having
established the history of the economics of our land and resources, we'll segue
into the particulars of the pecan festival. If our fair community wanted a
gimmick to attract visitors and pick their pockets, we'd throw a town party,
complete with the full complement of advertising, fanfare and, of course, a
catchy, but meaningless name like the Tadpole, Sand Storm or Road Lizard
Festival. Instead, we've opted for a much more pragmatic approach to
celebrate our connection to our trees and forests and the harvesting of our
native flora and fauna. We have set aside the first weekend in November of
each year as the date when we bring our pecans into town and sell them to the
public. On a weekend when our population is somewhat inflated by visitors
in pursuit of the wilderness sport, it just makes sense for us to offer up our
pecans.
Important note: Detailed information on the pecan festival
will be posted soon. When we've finished with the prototype of our special
pecan crop-o-meter, we'll post our best predictions for this fall's crop
size. For our most current information, click on "Festival Details"
below.
