THE ACOKN AS HUMAN FOOD 



**an analysis of the fire-dried seeds shows them to 

 contain 48.30% of fatty matter. The oil solidifies 

 at 5°, is suitable for food and of good quality, and 

 possesses the immense advantage of not turning 

 rancid.'^ The shrub has been recommended for 

 culture in the desert regions of the French Colonies 

 of North Africa. 



There is a beautiful little tree called the California 

 Buckeye (Aesculus Calif ornica, Nutt.) which whitens 

 with its fine thyrses of bloom the hillsides of spring 

 near streams in central and northern California. In 

 summer and autumn it acquires another sort of con- 

 spicuousness due to the early dropping of its foliage, 

 baring the limbs even in August. It then becomes 

 a very skeleton of a tree upon which the fruits, 

 hanging thick, look like so manj^ dry, plump figs. 

 The leathery rind of the latter encloses one or two 

 thin-shelled nuts, shiny and reddish brown like those 

 of the tree^s cousins, the Buckeyes of the Middle 

 West. To white folk these nuts, attractive as they 

 appear, seem nevertheless devoid of food possibili- 

 ties; indeed, in their raw state, they are known to 

 be poisonous. That the Indian should have discov- 

 ered how to turn them into fuel for the human 

 machine seems, therefore, even more remarkable 

 than the conversion of the acorn into an edible 



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