THE HICKORY NUT 79 



ory, doubtless the best of the tribe, was quite 

 abundant along the banks of the Nashua River 

 near my home, and I early learned to distinguish 

 the great difference in the products of the trees, 

 all of which, of course, were natural seedlings. 



Among hundreds of trees there would be 

 scarcely two that bore nuts of precisely the same 

 appearance and quality. 



Some of these hickory nuts were long and 

 slender, with prominent ridges; some were short 

 and compact and smooth in contour; some were 

 very flat and others were nearly globular. The 

 shell varied correspondingly in thickness, and the 

 meat varied greatly in whiteness and in flavor. 



As a boy I knew very well which trees to seek 

 in the fall in order to secure nuts that were plump 

 and thin-shelled, with sweet and delicious meats. 

 It was only after the crop of these trees had been 

 gathered that inferior ones gained attention. 



I knew very well, also, that different trees 

 varied greatly in productiveness, some bearing 

 nuts so abundantly each year that the ground 

 was literally covered when the nuts fell. Others 

 produced nuts very sparingly. 



The trees that thus varied as to their fruit, 

 varied also in form, in size, and in rapidity of 

 growth. In a word, the wild hickories repre- 

 sented numerous varieties that a boy could differ-- 



