Taken from The Call of The San Saba By Alma Ward Hamrick Copyrighted 1969

POTENTIALITY OF THE SAN SABA DRAWS ENGLISHMAN

E. E. Risien's Work as a Pecan Breeder Gives World Renown to San Saba County

If Alfred, Lord Tennyson were living today, he could see his wish, expressed in a letter to the English-born West Texan, Edmond E. Risien of San Saba, fulfilled, in that the recipient of the letter, written from the English author's home on the Isle of Wight, "has lived long and happily and has seen his pecan trees flourish." The letter dated March 19, 1892, a few months before the death of the poet, at Farringford, Freshwater, was written to Mr. Risien just one day before the world renowned pecan breeder reached his thirty-ninth birthday, and when on the twentieth of March 1940 some three hundred and fifty West Texans joined him on his eighty-seventh birthday at his home in San Saba, he had literally thousands of his pecan trees growing in all parts of the world: England, France, Madagascar, Palestine, Australia, South America, Mexico, and in all states of the Union where western varieties thrive.

It was by accident that West Texas became the home of Mr. Risien; he had landed at Galveston as a youth in the summer of 1872, and after staying there for sometime he started to Lime- stone County to visit with relatives. His destination was California. Landing at San Saba in 1874, the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia beckoned to him, and he left San Saba with an exhibit of pecans. His short stay in the little frontier town gave promise of more work, so returning he took up his trade as a cabinet maker, later installing the first water system and giving additional attention to pecans.

In the early '70's wagonloads of buffalo meat and wagon- loads of pecans were seen daily in the fall of the year in the streets. The pecans were examined for flavor, color, earliness, texture, and possibilities of easy shelling. He offered a five- dollar prize for the best pecans. Many samples were brought in, among them was one which excited Mr. Risien's interest to the extent that he asked the whereabouts of the tree producing the nuts. The man took him to the site, on the peninsula created at the junction of the San Saba and Colorado. Risien was horrified to find only one small twig on the tree. The prizewinner explained that he left the one limb on "so I'd have something to stand on to cut off the others and get off the pecans." After lengthy negotiations of the land with the owner, who lived in Virginia, Mr. Risien bought three hundred and twenty acres. On forty acres of that tract he has one thousand bearing pecan trees, no two of them alike.

From the tree on the Colorado at the mouth of the San Saba, the little twig put out new growth, and Risien named the tree the "San Saba". Years later it has been called the "mother tree", because it has been the tree with which he has, carried on much of his breeding work. The vegetative fruiting buds on this tree are artificially fertilized by the pollen drawn from the father tree twelve miles away: By use of cellophane, cotton-stopped bags and mechanical pressure, the cross between the parents has been engineered.

When one of his new varieties did not measure up to the standard he had fixed as a goal, it was put aside. Contending that trees which did not produce sufficiently, had faulty nuts or one of the many defects of the pecan kingdom, he set about to find the proper factor through the location of the trees growing from nuts fertilized with ripe, well-matured pollen, since pollen was such a proponent factor in the development of the nuts. Always he looked for trees well located with reference to the supply of water near by, because of the absolute necessity of water to the proper development of pecans.

It is impossible to determine the hundreds of miles Mr. Risien has ridden, in early days on horseback, in looking for the desired plant he wished to cross with the mother tree. When located the pecan catkins (male blossoms) were carefully placed in saddlebags and carried to the tree, where the pollen from them, was carefully applied to the pistillate (female blossoms) and there began the cross-pollination to breed his famous bred- up paper shell pecans. Long years were required in waiting to see just what the new variety was to be, since some ten years was required for the seedling to reach maturity. If the nuts were a desirable variety, bud wood could then be grafted onto the older native trees. This is the most popular modern method, where quick production is desired.

In 1888, the West Texas Pecan Nursery was founded in San Saba by Mr. Risien, and here he continued his shipments of pecans to many parts of the country, at first nuts from the native trees which grew so productively along the San Saba and other streams, and later his young seedlings. It was a young seedling that he sent to Lord Tennyson. The beloved Queen Victoria of England enjoyed eating pecans from the Risien orchards, so did Secretary of State John Jay, while the elder Mr. Studebaker of automobile industries secured his eating nuts from the Risien groves. C. W. Post, founder of the large cereals company which bears his name, was so impressed with an exhibit arranged in a grape-like cluster, which Mr. Risien had placed at the World's Fair in Chicago, that he came to San Saba to visit with the scientist and inspect the pecans growing here. From that grape-like cluster of pecans, it is generally admitted Post derived the name of his best-known cereal, Grape-Nuts. The late Prince Cordova, eldest son of the deposed King of Spain, who was killed in an automobile wreck in America, ordered pecans for eating purposes from the Risiens for a number of years.

At his advanced age, this man who has the ability of making a plant eat out of his hand, while deeply interested in pecans, just as he is all form of nature, has had for the past few years .the hobby of breeding a type of weeping live oaks found in this locality, Louisiana and Old Mexico. Not for himself but for a

chance to realize his objective, Mr. Risien says, "I want a little more time." His experimental laboratory for this work is an old oak which stands in the northwestern part of the city of San Saba and known as the marriage oak, because of weddings which took place under its limbs during many years. This is called his mother live oak, and the father tree, from which the pollen is being taken stands some fifteen miles southeast of the town.

It has been the western varieties of pecans that Risien has busied himself in improving, pecans that Western Texas as well as the western Hemisphere could point to with pride. He has named them the "San Saba Improved, Texas Prolific, No. 60", because sixty per cent of the nut was meat; the "Onliwon" (only one), "Squirrel Delight," "Longfellow," "Commonwealth,"  "Colorado," "Supreme," and others including the recent "John Garner," which was the introduction but named by Ross Wolfe s of Stephenville who has the propagation rights to this nut. His s hometown takes pride in his work by proclaiming in welcoming signs, in neon lights and her advertising that she is "San Saba, The Home of the Paper Shell Pecan." He is an honorary member of the San Saba Rotary Club, and his financial success is such that during the last several decades he and members of his family have enjoyed trips to both eastern and western states, to his native England, and he and his wife have spent seasons in Florida for his health. He has given liberally to benevolent causes and through this man, who personally knew Luther Burbank and corresponded on numerous details of their work with him, San Saba County has become more widely known than through any other source.

Mr. Risien was born in Deal, County of Kent, England, on March 20, 1853, and he takes pride in his nationality. His wife, who was Miss Elizabeth Lyne, was a native of England. They were married in San Saba sixty-one years ago on the seventeenth

 of the last May. They have four children, Mrs. Doris Oliver, Mrs. Lee Oliver, and E. Guy Risien, the latter associated with his father in the pecan business, all of San Saba, and Mrs. A. B. Liptak of Rye, New York. There are nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Risien, lover of children, is host with his annual nut-gathering party to the children of the San Saba primary grades each, fall, and on his birthday in March they honor him on this s anniversary by singing, by well wishes, and by their appearances 's at his party with a joint gift.

As Risien sought to extend his work in pecan culture, he was giving the San Saba and her environs wide publicity-a publicity in which she was to reap rich rewards in years to come.  Recognized as the pecan capital of the world, many others began to give more attention to the culture of the nut. Native groves were cleared, and new varieties were discovered and named. Co-operative organizations for marketing were formed, and the price for which pecans were to be retailed each production season s ' has for many years been set by San Saba. Methods of budding II and grafting have been studied and copied by other sections. Hundreds of groves along the San Saba and her tributaries are, in development, and millions of trees still produce much revenue y in their original state.