AMERICAN FOREST TREES 357 



When small hickory trees are cut, the stumps often sprout, but hoop 

 poles are about the only commodity made from that kind of hickory. 

 If sprouts are left to grow large, the trees produced are generally de- 

 fective. Good hickory grows from the nut. The term "second growth" 

 means little, unless it is explained in each instance just what conditions 

 are included. In one sense, all young, vigorous trees are second growth, 

 and that is often the idea in the mind of the speaker. Some would 

 restrict it to trees which have come up in old fields or partial clearings, 

 where they have plenty of light, and have grown rapidly. Their trunks 

 are short, the wood is tough, and there is little red heart wood. The 

 larger a pine, oak, or poplar, provided it is sound, the better the wood; 

 but not so with hickory. Great age and large size add no desirable 

 qualities to this wood. 



Shagbark is largest of the true hickories. The pecans are not 

 usually regarded as true hickories from the wood-user's viewpoint. 

 Some shagbarks are 120 feet high and four feet in diameter, but the 

 average size is about seventy-five tall, two in diameter. There is con- 

 fusion of names among all the hickories, and shagbark is misnamed and 

 over-named as often as any of the others. Many persons do not know 

 shagbark and shellbark apart, though the ranges of the two species lie 

 only partly in the same territory. Shagbark is known as shellbark 

 hickory, shagbark hickory, shellbark, upland hickory, hickory, scaly 

 bark hickory, white walnut, walnut, white hickory, and red heart 

 hickory. Most of the names refer to the bark, which separates into thin 

 strips, often a foot or more long, and six inches or more wide; and this 

 remains more or less closely attached to the trunk by the middle, giving 

 the shaggy appearance to which the tree owes its common name. 



The leaf-buds are large and ovate, with yellowish-green and brown 

 scales. The leaves are compound and alternate ; they have rough stalks 

 containing five or seven leaflets; they are sessile, tapering to a point and 

 having a rounded base. The lower pan- of leaflets is markedly different 

 from the rest in shape ; sharply serrate and thin ; dark green and glabrous 

 above; lighter below. The flowers do not appear until the leaves have 

 fully matured. They grow in catkins; the staminate ones are light 

 green, slender, and grow in groups of three on long peduncles; the 

 pistillate ones grow in spikes of from two to five flowers. The fruit 

 grows within a dense, green husk, shiny and smooth on the outside, 

 opening in four parts. The nut is nearly white, four-angled, and flat- 

 tened at the sides. The kernel is sweet and of a strong flavor. 



This tree's range is not much short of 1,000,000 square miles, but it 

 is not equally abundant in all parts. It grows from southern Maine to 

 western Florida; is found in Minnesota and Nebraska, and southward 



