FARM FRESH PECANS
HISTORY OF BOYKIN FARMS
In the late 1920’s, Robert Burley Boykin, Jr, MD. of Mise, Mississippi, purchased 360 acres in Brooks County, Texas, located in four different parcels just south of Falfurrias.
At that time, trainloads of people from various states, would travel to Falfurrias to see the highly advertised parcels of land. The area was beautiful and appealing with a long growing season, mild weather and was well known for its dairies. It was known as “Land of Hearts Delight,” because of the name of the flower that that grew so abundantly and was only in the Falfurrias area.
In 1932, he traded 40 acres of land in Falfurrias for property in Mississippi to John Edwin Boykin, Sr. At that time, John Edwin Boykin, Sr. and his family, moved from Mississippi to Falfurrias. As part of the property trade, Dr. Boykin had the building materials for a large house, as well as the carpenters to build it, sent from Mississippi to Texas by rail, where they built a home for John Edwin Boykin, Sr. He put 20 acres into citrus trees and had a dairy consisting of Jersey cows.
In 1941, John (Red) Edwin Boykin, Jr. planted 30 acres of citrus and had a dairy and Jersey cows on another 80 acres. Unfortunately, in late 1952, a freeze wiped out 95% of the citrus throughout all of Brooks County. Now, only the dairy was left.
In 1956, he expanded the dairy by building a modern barn and using the latest left.technology in milking machines which allowed him to operate the dairy even though he was blind.
In 1963, the dairy was closed due to poor milk prices throughout the area. Starting then, the eldest son, Larry Boykin, ran cows and grew watermelons until 1990.
In 1990, Larry Boykin and his brother, Jim Boykin, decided to venture into the Texas Pecan industry. The Falfurrias orchard was planted first with pecan tree seedlings (approximately 800), including an irrigation system. Over the next several years, as the trees grew, Larry Boykin began the grafting process. He grafted the trees with the improved varieties of pecans, including Choctaw, Wichita, Desirable, Cheyenne, and Podsednik (world’s largest pecan).
In 1995, the decision was made to expand our operation to include our property in Jim Wells County, just south of Premont. Since it is only 9 miles away from our Falfurrias Orchard, we utilize the same equipment on both orchards.We planted seedlings (approximately 700) in the Premont Orchard, which now gave us a total of approximately 1500 trees, as well as a complete irrigation system. As the trees grew, they were also grafted with the improved varieties of Choctaw, Wichita, Desirable, Cheyenne, and Podsednik.
