54 THE NUT CULTUR1ST. 



a salad oil. In Silesia it is used by the country people 

 instead of butter, and the cakes which remain from the 

 pressure are given to fatten swine, oxen and poultry. 

 The forests of Eu and of Crecy, in the department of 

 the Oise, it is stated by Duhamel du Monceau, have 

 yielded, in a single season, more than 2,000,000 bushels 

 of mast, but probably this referred to all kinds of nuts, 

 and not beechnuts alone. Years later, or in 1779, 

 Michaux states that the forests of Compiegne, near the 

 Verberie department of the Somme, afforded oil enough 

 to supply the wants of the district for more than half a 

 century. In some parts of France beechnuts are roasted 

 and served as a substitute for coffee. Many of these old 

 forests have disappeared, but other kinds of nut trees 

 are still being planted in France, and the product is 

 simply enormous, and a source of wealth to the peasant, 

 as well as the owners of extensive forests and orchards. 

 The beechnut has never been an article of commerce 

 in this country, and it is rarely seen on sale in either 

 country villages or our larger cities, not because of its 

 scarcity or want of demand, but all that the country 

 boys and girls find time to gather are wanted for their 

 own pleasure and use. Picking up beechnuts among 

 the leaves in a forest, or even after raking off the leaves 

 and then whipping the trees, is, at best, slow and rather 

 tedious work, as I know full well from experience, and 

 only once do I remember of having secured a rounded 

 half bushel as the sum total of many raids on the beech 

 trees in the neighborhood. But as the beechnut is the 

 diamond among the larger and less precious gems of our 

 forests, we should set a higher value upon it because 

 small and rather difficult to obtain. 



