SEPTEMBER. 421 



These trees are also abundant on fertile slopes, near brook- 

 sides, and on rocky hills that abound in clay or yellow loam ; 

 but they do not flourish well in light sandy soils and are 

 seldom found in bogs. They are even better indications than 

 the oak of a fertile soil. All the species of hickory are very 

 beautiful in the autumn, when their leaves invariably assume 

 a bright yellow tint, varying only in their shades, and gradu- 

 ally turning to russet before they fall from the tree. Their 

 foliage has a general resemblance to that of the ash, but it is 

 more dense and heavy, and of a darker green. It is so heavy 

 indeed, that we seldom find a tree whose branches have not 

 acquired a drooping habit from the weight of the foliage, in 

 which it is surpassed only by a very few species. I am in- 

 clined to believe that if the hickory were a wide-spreading 

 tree, there is no other native tree of our forests that would 

 afford so nearly an impenetrable shade. 



Of the hickories there are four species which are common 

 and well known in New England, the Shellbark, the Pig- 

 nut, the Mocke7mut, and the Bitternut. These different 

 species, considered as ornamental trees, have nearly the same 

 characteristics, differing more in the number of leaflets, in 

 their compound foliage, and in the shape and character of 

 their fruit, than in their general appearance. They are all, at 

 a little distance, liable to be mistaken for one another. I have 

 seen the bitternut with foliage as heavy as that of the shell- 

 bark, and the latter with small nuts, and leaves as small as 

 those of the ash. Individuals of the same species differ also 

 in the number of their leaflets ; and I should be disposed to 

 class them under only three divisions — the shellbark, the 

 pignut, and the bitternut, considering the mockernut as but a 

 variety of the pignut. 



The wood of the hickory is exceedingly hard and tough, 

 and for certain purposes more valuable than that of any other 

 tree. For the handles of chisels, gimlets, augers, axes and other 

 tools, for the teeth of wooden rakes, for mallets and beetles, 

 bows for yokes, springs for carriages, and for all those articles 

 of wooden manufacture which require hardness and strength, 

 and which are not to be exposed to the moisture of the 



