NUTS They are to be gathered in October, dried in November and eaten in 

 December. A Christmas without nuts would be like a Fourth of July without firecrackers. 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



EDUCATION AND RECREATION 



VOL. Ill 



DECEMBER 1910 



No. 8 





sXOE OUTDOOR WORLD 



The Romance of Seven Nuts 



By A. C. POMEROY, Lockport, N. Y. 



EOPLE who have traveled 

 in England come home 

 with stories of the splen- 

 did old trees that spread 

 their sheltering branches 

 far over many a grassy 

 park or village street. And 

 among the stately trees of the old coun- 

 try the English walnut holds a prom- 

 inent place. Its symmetrical shape, its 

 dark dense foliage, smooth light grey, 

 or ash colored bark, making it very 

 desirable for an ornamental or lawn 

 tree. 



Old and gnarled and tugged at the 

 bole and often the children of many 

 generations have climbed it, built 

 play-houses in its branches in summer, 

 and clubbed it in autumn when the 

 clustering nuts have tempted the 



young rangers. They say in England 

 that the more you club the walnut in 

 the fall the bigger crop of nuts will it 

 yield next year. 



"A wife, a dog, and a walnut tree, 

 The more you club 'em the better they be !" 



The reason for this lies in the fact 

 that the nuts grow only on the new 

 wood and every branch that has its 

 nut-laden ends knocked off in the fall 

 will put forth a couple or more of new 

 pieces of wood the next spring, and 

 each of these will bear its clusters of 

 nuts equal in number to those on the 

 original one. 



English walnuts have been grown m 

 this country. The California English 

 walnut is well known. Until recent 

 years the Northern and New England 

 states were supposed to be too cold 



Copyright 1910 by The Aeassiz Association. Arcadia: Sound Beach. Conn. 



