AMERICAN FOREST TREES 369 



The hickory which goes into agricultural implements fills many 

 places, among the most important being connecting rods. It is often 

 made into springs to take up or check oscillation. It is used for that 

 purpose as picker sticks in textile mills. 



Furniture makers could get along without hickory, and they do not 

 need much. It is oftenest seen in dowels, slender spindles, and the 

 rungs of chairs. The makers of sporting and athletic goods bend it for 

 rackets, hoops, and rims, or make vaulting poles, bats, or trapezes. 



SHELLBARK HICKORY (Hicoria laciniosd) is often mistaken for 

 shagbark. The ranges of the two species coincide in part only. Shag- 

 bark grows farther east, north and south than shellbark. The latter 

 occupies an island, as it were, inside the shagbark's range. Shellbark is 

 found from central New York and eastern Pennsylvania, westward to 

 Kansas, and southward to North Carolina and middle Tennessee. The 

 species is at its best in the lower Ohio valley and in Missouri. The 

 largest trees are 120 feet high and three in diameter, and are often free 

 from branches half or two-thirds of the length. The species prefers rich, 

 deep bottom lands, and does not suffer from occasional inundation 

 from overflowing rivers. The average tree is not quite as large as shag- 

 bark. The leaves are larger than those of any other hickory, ranging in 

 length from fifteen to twenty-two inches. There are from five to nine 

 leaflets, usually seven. The upper ones are largest, and may be eight 

 or nine inches long and four or five wide. In the autumn the leaflets 

 drop from the petioles which adhere to the branches and furnish means 

 of identifying the tree in winter. The nuts including the hulls are as 

 large as small apples. When ripe, the hulls open and the nuts fall out; 

 but the hulls fall also. The nuts are as large as shagbark nuts, but the 

 two are seldom distinguished in market, though the shagbark's are a 

 little richer in flavor. The bark's roughness gives the tree its name. 

 Strips three or four feet long and five or six inches wide curl up at the 

 lower ends sometimes at both ends and adhere to the trunk several 

 years. The species has other names. It is known as big shellbark 

 in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, 

 Illinois, and Kansas; bottom shellbark in Illinois; western shellbark of 

 simply shellbark in Rhode Island and Kentucky; thick shellbark in 

 South Carolina, Indiana, and Tennessee; kingnut in Tennessee. 



The wood weighs 50.53 pounds per cubic foot, and is very hard, 

 strong, tough, and flexible. The heartwood is dark brown, the sapwood 

 nearly white. This hickory usually has less sapwood in proportion to 

 heart than other members of the species; but the wood is not kept 

 separate from the others when it goes to market, and its uses are as 

 extensive as the other hickories'. It is believed by some foresters that 





