I landed in Greece in 1901. In Athens I saw them selling on the streets these pistache nuts which I opened with my fingers. The kernels are a brilliant green. I had never seem them before. I had heard of them. They were sold around the streets by the Greek peddlers and called pistachios. The pistache or pistachio industry is one which I wish some young, energetic man of seventy would take up. I say 70 because it requires a young man of seventy to take up one of these nut industries, the boys of 26 are too old. Some young fellow of seventy should go into the pistache industry and find out what there is in it and develop it into a great industry. The American Consul in Palestine told me six or eight years ago that there was no plant culture in all Palestine that paid so well as a pistache orchard. Trees have been known to yield as much as 40 to 50 dollars apiece. The Grecian pistaches are different from those of Tunis and Algeria and others of the Mediterranean countries. There are a good many different varieties.
This picture shows a piece of praline made of pistaches. This is sold on the streets of Athens and compares very favorably with our pralines made in New Orleans from the kernel of the pecan.
Mr. Chisholm, who was connected with the Consulate in Athens and who spoke Greek very well, took me out and showed me what these pistache trees looked like and when I found this miscellaneous lot of grafted pistache trees I made an arrangement to purchase the whole collection and send it to this country. I had great difficulty in getting the American Consul in Piraeus to help me ship them. I could not wait indefinitely and it took a good while to have them dug and packed. I asked him if he would send them and he said he was very busy. I told him this was a matter which concerned the people of the United States and if he did not have time to do it I would telegraph to the Secretary of Agriculture and tell him that the Consul in Athens was too busy to ship these plants. Finally he consented to ship them and this was the first shipment of grafted pistache trees to arrive in America. They were badly grafted, badly packed and badly prepared and I think only one of this whole collection survived and is now growing in the Gallespie grounds at Montecito, California.