The Walnuts and the Hickories 



in spirit, will be re-enacted in farm homes in widely distant parts 

 of the country. Nuts and apples and cider in the firelight! 



We have been setting fuel down as the last of a tree's uses. 

 Naturally, burning is the end of things, and it is often an ignoble 

 end. But fire is one of the great elemental forces in nature. A 

 great conflagration is magnificent; a smouldering rubbish heap is 

 not. Some kinds of wood sputter peevishly in burning. The 

 most splendid wood fire is made of seasoned hickory. Wake up 

 the old backlog, charred by half a hundred fires. Lay in the 

 kindling and feed the growing flames at last with shagbark cord- 

 wood. There is no flame so brilliant as this; no wood burns with 

 a more fervent heat. No wonder " the great throat of the chimney 

 laughs." The passing of hickory wood in flames back to its primal 

 elements is the fitting end of a noble tree. 



The North Carolina Shagbark (//. CarolincE-septentrionalis, 

 Ashe) differs from the preceding species in its smaller size and slen- 

 derer habit throughout. The twigs are dark red and slender and 

 the leaflets are small, lanceolate, with long, tapering points. The 

 buds are scarcely \ inch long, thin inner scales lengthening to i to 2 

 inches and becoming bright yellow as they unfold. The little nuts 

 have thin shells and the kernels are sweet. The bark of this tree 

 is much like its more burly cousins. The strips are equally tough 

 and persistent, but not quite so large. 



The range of this shagbark covers the limestone uplands of 

 eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, and extends south 

 along river bottoms into Georgia and central Alabama. 



Mockernut, Big Bud Hickory {Hicoria alba, Britt.) A 

 slender, tall, pyramidal tree, 50 to 80 feet high. Bark grey, thick, 

 hard, close, rough, scaly; twigs pubescent, resinous, dotted. 

 JVood dark brown (sap wood white), heavy, hard, strong, elastic, 

 close. Buds: terminal ones large, ovate; outer scales ovate, 

 acute, often keeled, falling in autumn; lateral buds small, yellow- 

 ish brown. Leaves alternate, 1 5 to 20 inches long, of 7 to 9 leaflets, 

 sessile, except end one, serrate, oblong-lanceolate, downy, yellow- 

 green, russet or yellow in fall; petiole downy, swollen, large. 

 Flowers: staminate in catkins 4 to 8 inches long, hairy; pistillate 

 2 to 3 on terminal spike. May. Fruit, October, i to 3 nuts, globose 

 or oblong, often long-pointed; 1} to 2 inches long, red-brown, 

 strong scented; sutures opening to middle or nearly to base; nut 

 globular, 4-ridged near top, thick shelled; kernel small, sweet, 



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