270 THE HICKORIES 



it is largely planted for its fruit in states south of southern 

 Illinois, where the trees are grown from nuts from selected 

 trees or from grafts cut from such trees. 



SHAGBARK HICKORY : Hicoria ovata 



LIKE many another valuable timber tree this one is 

 loaded down with a large number of strange and absurd 

 names, several of which may be heard in localities not 

 widely separated. It is not uncommon to hear it called 

 Shellbark and Shagbark in the same vicinity. It is the 

 largest of the valuable Hickories, only the Pecan exceeding 

 it in size. It is ordinarily found from eighty to ninety feet 

 in height and from twenty-four to thirty-six inches in 

 diameter, while specimens showing one hundred and twenty 

 feet in height, with a diameter of three or even four feet, 

 are not very rare. 



Its natural range includes an area bounded by a line 

 drawn from Maine to eastern Nebraska, and south to Texas, 

 thence through northern Mississippi and thence northward 

 to Maine, but not along the Atlantic Coast from Florida to 

 New Jersey. Its best development is along the western 

 slope of the Alleghany Mountains and in southern Ohio, 

 Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Vir- 

 ginia, but it is a vigorous grower from southern New Eng- 

 land to Alabama. It grows best in a rich, moist soil, along 

 streams and around the borders of swamps, but does not 

 show much lack of vigor on low, fertile hills or in moist in- 

 tervales. The character of the soil seems somehow to affect 

 the quality of the timber in all the Hickories. Studebaker 

 Brothers, manufacturers of carriages, of South Bend, Indi- 

 ana, write the author that " the best stock is grown only 

 on clay lands with heavy limestone subsoil. Good Oak and 

 Hickory are associated and usually grow of the same qual- 

 ity in the same class of soil, and where Oak is inclined to 

 be brashy and pithy, the Hickory is likewise." 



The tree is light-demanding, and when grown in close 



