COMMERCIAL USES OF THE HICKORY 



455 



strated by the many hickory trees that develop from nuts 

 buried and forgotten by the squirrels. Since squirrels 

 and other rodents are inclined to raid plantations when 

 the hickory nuts are sown in the fall, spring planting is 

 preferable. The nuts may be kept in fit condition for 

 spring planting by burying them, well protected, in moist 

 sand, but in this case they should not be covered deep 

 enough to prevent the frost from cracking the shells. 



Hickories grow slowly compared with many other trees 

 and for satisfactory growth they require deep, rich soil. 

 Some species are less exacting in regard to soil than others, 

 and it is always well to study the natural conditions 

 under which these trees grow before attempting to 

 plant them. The Pecan grows more rapidly than any 

 of the other species and may produce a small amount 

 of fruit in ten years. 



Commercial Uses of the Hickory 



THE first explorers of eastern North America called 

 the hickories " walnuts " because they slightly 

 resembled the Circassian walnut, with which they 

 were familiar. Captain John Smith wrote of " pawco- 

 hiccora," the pleasantly flavored dressing which the In- 

 dians ate with crushed corn. The squaws crushed hickory 

 hulls and nuts in a wooden mortar, to which water was 

 added until it formed a milky liquid. The name used 

 by the Indians was given to the trees by the early settlers, 

 being shortened into hickory. 



The ripe hickory nuts furnished the Indians with a 

 valuable part of their winter food, and some tribes gath- 

 ered large quantities, especially in the South, where a single 

 family sometimes stored a hundred bushels. In the east- 

 ern United States and the Mississippi Valley, the Indians 

 made most of their bows and war clubs of hickory wood. 

 In the early part of the sum- 

 mer, bark peeled from young 

 hickory trees was used for ropes 

 and cords. During the rest of 

 the year, hickory withes — the 

 stems of young seedlings or 

 sprouts made pliable by twist- 

 ing — were used to tie bundles, 

 bind wigwam poles together, 

 and for similar uses. The early 

 settlers frequently substituted 

 hickory withes for rope, wire or 

 nails, and many farmers still find 

 them useful in an emergency. 



Hickory sap furnished an 

 ointment or liniment which was 

 once used to "supple the joints." 

 Drv and decayed hickory wood 

 made the best punk in a day 

 when flint and steel had not 

 been replaced by the convenient 

 matches. This fact was learned 

 from the Indians, who likewise 

 taught the settlers how to pre- 

 serve meat with hickory ashes. 

 The old-fashioned home-cured 

 hams were given their excep- 

 tionally rich flavor by curing 

 them in smoke from a hickory 



HICKORY B 

 The holes made by the hickory 



fire. Hickory wood was also preferred for curing 

 tobacco artificially because it produced a steady heat, 

 burned for a long time and required little attention. 

 The farmer's wife made special provision to save the 

 hickory ashes in the ash hopper for soap making. Old- 

 time blacksmiths used hickory charcoal before coal and 

 coke were available. Strips of hickory bark and hickory 

 splints were much used in weaving baskets, chair seats, 

 and other home-made articles of furniture. For nearly 

 200 years the split broom, usually made from hickory, 

 was the principal apparatus for sweeping. A section of 

 a sapling, 4 or 5 feet long and 2 or 3 inches in diameter, 

 was chosen and the butt end was shaved into a thousand or 

 more thin splits, each about 10 inches long, without detach- 

 ing them from the stick ; when the splits were tied together 

 with string, the broom was ready for a year's service. 



]\Iany old-time appliances 

 made of hickory, such as 

 swingles, cringles, hand fids and 

 gluts, are long forgotten. Hick- 

 ory ramrods were used in load- 

 ing the long rifles and muzzle- 

 loading shot guns. No other 

 wood was considered suitable for 

 ax handles when hickory could 

 be obtained. The smooth, slen- 

 der, yielding handles made 

 American axes famous for their 

 efficiency. Hickory has long 

 been and will continue to be a 

 favorite for handles of all kinds. 

 Hoop making was one of the 

 early industries that consumed 

 large quantities of hickory sap- 

 lings. Hoop poles were 1 to 2 

 inches in diameter and from 9 to 

 15 feet long. They were used for 

 hooping many kinds of barrels, 

 kegs and tubs, but probably more 

 were used on tobacco hogsheads 

 than any other container. Cut- 

 ting hoop poles was responsible 

 for the destruction of inmiense 

 numbers of fine young hickory 

 trees and it is onlv through the 



.\RK BORERS 



bark borers which have developed 

 under the bark and bored their way out. 



