Pecan nuts were already a dietary staple for Native Americans in various parts of what is now the United States before Antoine’s innovation established the basis for a commercial pecan industry. This use of pecans by Indigenous people should not be surprising given that that the name of the nut, “pecan,” itself is thought to be derived from the Algonquin word “pakani,” which translates to “a nut too hard to crack by hand” or, alternatively, “a nut requiring a stone to crack.”
Pecans were used in various dishes by Native Americans; they were also central in trade and in other important parts of life. Fermented nuts were used in traditional Indigenous ceremonies. For example, fermented nuts were used by the Algonquin to make a drink known as “powcohiccora” that was consumed in sacred ritual, as well as during battles to enhance the bravery of fighters. Additionally, extracts from pulverized pecan tree parts such as leaves and bark served medicinal purposes, including as antibacterial and antifungal agents, to treat ailments such as ringworm and nausea.
Antoine’s successful inosculation would produce what came to be known as the Centennial variety of pecan, which transformed the commercial pecan industry.
Noting the many decades, if not centuries, of importance of pecans in the lives of Indigenous people in the United States, it was Antoine’s plant grafting experiments with pecan trees during the nineteenth century that led to the development of a viable propagation method. This ability to increase propagation and growth was important, as these nuts were consumed by many Southerners in the areas where they grew and were indeed a prized nutrition source due to their fat content and ease of storage and transport.
Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson planted pecans at their plantations, with Washington being known to carry them around in his pockets as a snack. Earlier attempts to develop a commercial market for pecans based on growing trees from seeds had been unsuccessful, as trees originating from seeds have a long lag period until maturation and production of nuts. Additionally, trees grown from nuts that are the offspring of a single individual frequently result in trees that are highly variable in terms of the nuts produced, including a range of nut sizes and nut quality.
Such variability is generally not good for commercial crops, which thrive on uniform and predictable nut production. Antoine’s advancements in the propagation of pecan trees that produced high-quality pecans of reproducible form, then, resulted in these nuts being cultivated as a cash crop that could be mass produced. This agricultural advance ultimately supported the production of up to ten million pounds of pecans annually by the early 1920s, resulting in a multimillion dollar pecan industry.