30 TREES 



found, from the Sacramento Valley to the southern slopes 

 of the San Bernardino Mountains. 



The foliage is bright pale green, feathery, the leaflets 

 often curved to sickle form, showing paler silky linings. 

 Cahfornians admire and plant this tree for shade and orna- 

 ment. Its greatest value is as a hardy stock upon which 

 the "English" walnut is grafted by nurserymen, for plant- 

 ing orchards of this commercial nut. The fruit of the 

 native nut is excellent, but it cannot compete with the 

 thin-shelled nut that came from Persia, via England. 



The Butternut, White Walnut, or Oilnut 



J. cinerea, Linn. 



In eastern woods the butternut is known by its long, 

 pointed nuts, with deeply and raggedly sculptured shells, in 

 fuzzy, clammy, sticky husks that stain the hands of him who 

 attempts to get at the oily meat before the husks are dry. 

 This dark stain was an important dye in the time when 

 homespun cotton cloth was worn by men and boys. The 

 modern khaki resembles in color the "butternut jeans," in 

 which backwoods regiments of the Civil War were clad. 

 Butternut husks and bark yield also a drug of cathartic 

 properties. 



Pickling green oilnuts in their husks is a housewifely 

 industry, on the summer programme of many housewives 

 still, if the woods near by furnish the raw material for em- 

 ploying her great-grandmother's recipe, brought from Eng- 

 land, or perhaps from France. The green nuts are tested 

 with a knitting needle. If it goes through them with no 

 difficulty, and yet the nuts are of good size, they are ready. 

 Vigorous rubbing removes the fuzz after the nuts are 



