129 



HICKORIES FOR THE CHESAPEAKE REGION 

 By W. C. Deming, Connecticut 



Anyone might be excused for feeling diffident in approacliing the 

 subject of instruction in growing nuts, or almost anything else, for the 

 fortunate inhabitants of this favored region. It is more a place where 

 one would come to learn than to teach. Before your own eyes are the 

 living proofs of the very things that the N. N. G. A. has been working 

 for so many years. Yet, sometimes, outsiders coming in can see what 

 the insiders, from their very nearness, overlook. I have been asked to 

 tell what can be done here, profitably, with the hickories. 



I shall not speak of the pecan hickory because you probably al- 

 ready know more about it than I do, and because there are other mem- 

 bers of the association present who may know more about it than 

 either of us do. 



Of the other species of hickory only three, at present, need at- 

 tention, the shagbark, C. ovata, the shellbark, C. laciniosa, and the 

 hybrids. 



The shagbark nuts, gathered from chance grown, natural trees, 

 and already tithed by the squirrels, sell in most grocery stores for 10 

 to 20 cents a pound. They are a mixed lot mostly small, weather-stained, 

 thick-shelled, nutpick varieties. Once in a while some old man, who 

 doesn't feel good for anything else, brings in to particular customers 

 the product of some special tree and get a special price — if he knows 

 enough. Then think of being able to put on the market large quanti- 

 ties of just such nuts, of the finest hickory nuts you ever saw, white, 

 uniform, large, thin-shelled and of the real hickory flavor ! Many 

 think that such nuts would command as high prices as do the best 

 pecans. But it has never been done. A strange neglect ! 



This association has rescued some of these fine hickories, and trees 

 grafted from them are bearing in a few places. Now what shall we do 

 in order to grow such nuts for market? 



What would you do if you wanted to grow an orchard of Albemarle 

 Pippins? You might buy some trees of a nurseryman and have them 



