172 



THE XUT CULTURIST. 



are plenty of larger ones with thin shells which would 

 be far more valuable for cultivation. 



A careful research extending over a period of a 

 quarter of a century yields only a solitary instance of 

 the propagation and dissemination of a variety of the 

 shellbark hickory, and this one is - Hales' Paper-shell, 

 which I named, described and figured in the Rural New- 

 Yorker, Nov. 19, 1870, p. 382, Vol. XXII. I am thus 

 particular in regard to time and place, because years 

 hence these facts may be of more importance than at 

 the present day. 



The original tree of this remarkable variety is grow- 

 ing upon the farm of Mr. Henry Hales, near Ridgewood, 

 N. J., and on bottom land within 'a. few rods of the 

 Saddle river. The tree is probably more than a hun- 

 dred years old, and is about seventy-five feet high, and 

 nearly two feet in diameter at the base, and of the shape 

 shown in Fig. 60, taken from a sketch made in the fall 



of 1894. .There 



are a large num- 

 ber of the shellbark 



hickories growing 



near by, and while 



there are several 



excellent and very 



large varieties 



among them, the PIQ 62 . SECTIONOF 

 FIG. 6i. HALES' HICKORY, one I have named HALES' HICKORY. 

 is by far the largest and most distinct in form, and with 

 the thinnest shell ; in fact, the shell is much thinner 

 than in many of the pecan nuts that reach our Northern 

 markets from the South. The size and form of these 

 nuts is clearly shown in Fig. 61, while the thin shell and 

 thick, plump kernel is seen in the cross-section, Fig. 62. 

 It will be noticed that these nuts differ from the ordi- 

 nary varieties of this species in the absence of the sharp 



