PART n 



THE NUT TREES 



The Walnuts — ^The Hickories — The Beech — The 

 Chestnuts — The Oaks — The White Oak Group 

 — The Black Oak Group — The Horse-chestnuts, 

 OR Buckeyes — The Lindens, or Basswoods 



THE WALNUTS 



Hickories are included with their near relatives, the 

 walnuts, in one of the most important of all our native tree 

 groups. They are distinct, yet they have many traits in 

 common — ^the flowers and the nut fruits, the hard resinous 

 wood, with aromatic sap and leaves of many leaflets, in- 

 stead of a single blade. 



The walnuts are decidedly "worth knowing." All produce 

 valuable timber and edible nuts, and all are good shade 

 trees. Four native walnuts are well known in this country, 

 for in October, every tree in every bit of woods is likely to 

 be visited by school boys with bags, eager to gather the nuts 

 before some other boy finds the tree, and thus establishes a 

 prior claim upon it. The curiously gnawed shells outside 

 the winter storehouse of some furry woods-dweller reveal 

 the most successful competitor boys have, the constant 

 watcher of the nut trees, a harvester who works at nothing 

 else while the season is on. 



