THE TREE AND ITS FORMS. 



27 



they live upon the nuts, they also bury them in the ground, and it is 

 largely through the agency of squirrels that the nuts are carried out 

 from under the shade of the parent tree, and the hickories thus get 

 a foothold in territory where seed trees are lacking. 



During the first few years the seedling spends most of its energy 

 in developing a taproot. Measurements of 32 seedlings growing in 

 heavy red clay soil showed that at one year the average shagbark had 

 a root about 12 inches long, the bitternut 11 inches, and the big 

 shellbark 13 inches. At 3 years of age the root of the big shellbark 

 is about 2^ feet long and the roots of the other hickories are about 

 the same length. 



The height growth of seedlings in the Ohio Valley in the open or 

 under light shade, on red clay soil, is shown in Table 1. 



TABLE 1. Height growth of seedlings. 



This table is not based on a sufficient number of seedlings to be 

 entirely conclusive, but it shows the relatively rapid growth of pecan 

 and big shellbark and the slow growth of shagbark, pignut, and 

 mockernut. 



Seedlings of large size are rare because seedlings usually meet with 

 an accident which kills them back and puts them in the class of 

 " seedling sprouts." Fire and pasturing are the chief sources of such 

 accidents, which, however, are not unmixed evils, because young 

 hickory sprouts readily, and the stool quickly sends out rapid-growing 

 shoots that are generally straighter than the original seedling. Hick- 

 ory is a very persistent sprouter when young. The sprouts will stand 

 heavy shade and will come up, time after time, undiscouraged by 

 repeated burnings and cutting back. In this property hickory excels 

 all other hardwoods of the central hardwood region. Partly through 

 this and partly through the fact that hickory is one of the last trees 

 which cattle will eat, large areas of pasture land, especially in Ohio 

 and Indiana, are occupied by pure stands of hickory sprouts. Occa- 

 sionally, also, abandoned fields are so occupied. In both cases such 

 stands are usually too open, and the trees are scrubby and knotty. 



Throughout the Ohio Valley and the central hardwood region gen- 

 erally, there is excellent reproduction of hickory in thickets under the 



