MISCELLANEOUS NUTS. 101 



It is a large tree, very common, but rather a slow grower, except on rich, warm soil. 

 The blossoms appear with the leaves, the staminate ones in roundish catkins, pendent 

 on slender stalks,! or 2 inches long from the axils of the lower leaves; the pistillate 

 blossoms usually in pairs on the hairy foot stalk from axils of the upper leaves of the 

 season. The triangular small nut is in outline much like a grain of buckwheat, 

 (pi. 15, figs. 10-12.) In flavor and quality the kernel somewhat resembles the hazel, 

 and where full-meated is a most acceptable dessert nut, popular for hotel tables. 

 The substance of the shell is much like that of the chestnut, and in size the beechnut 

 corresponds with the smaller chinkapin. Though hundreds of bushels of the nuts 

 are harvested from forest trees in some localities during exceptional years, they do 

 not enter with any regularity into commercial transactions. As a fattening food for 

 poultry and swine, the beechnut has a history that antedates the Christian era. Its 

 improvement by selection and culture would be a work of years, yet it might repay 

 the labor if the resulting nut could be grown larger and of its present acceptable 

 quality. Experiments would be much facilitated if a variety of dwarfish habit and 

 precocious fruiting could be found. The nuts are usually produced in alternate years, 

 but the trees of some sections are annual bearers of good crops, while in other locali- 

 ties the beech is reported as bearing full crops only on an average of one year in 

 five. Where systematic harvesting is attempted, sheets are spread under the tree and 

 the nuts are jarred, shaken, or poled from the tree on these sheets. 



OAKS (Quercua L.). 



The acorns of some oaks were used by the Indians as food, and are yet valuable 

 in some sections as food for swine, which are allowed to roam at large in the forests. 

 None of ihe oaks have been cultivated for this purpose, and, with the possible excep- 

 tion of Pin Oak (Quercus palustris Du Roi), none are regarded as sufficiently promis- 

 ing to justify their experimental planting for this purpose. 



Several correspondents in Indiana commend the quality of the acorns of the Pin 

 Oak, and regard it as worthy of attempts to improve it. Under the name Bayotis, 

 many acorns are reported to be sold along the Mexican frontier of Arizona and New 

 Mexico. Of the bread that is made by the Indians from the flour of the acorn, it is 

 said that it looks and tastes like coarse black clay which has been sun-dried a state- 

 ment which we are ready to believe without testing. 



HORSE-CHESTNUTS (Atsculus L.). 



Though the botanical name of the genus was derived from a Latin word meaning 

 nourishment, the nuts of most of the species of this genus are positively harmful, 

 causing death when used as food by man or other animals. JEsculus flava Aiton, 

 commonly called Sweet Buckeye, found in the rich woodlands from Virginia to Mis- 

 souri and southward, and ^sculus californica, a dwarf species on the Pacific Coast, 

 are barely edible. As such, these nuts, with many others of indifferent quality, were 

 used as food by the American Indians. To render the California nut edible, the 

 Indians pulverized it and then washed it freely with water to remove the bitter prin- 

 ciple, after which they baked it into bread. In this way they used large quantities 

 of them. But their use is now abandoned for that of the white man's bread. Aside 

 from superstitious uses of the nut to cure most of the diseases to which man is 

 subject they have been sometimes used in the South instead of soap, to wash woolen 

 goods. 



As an ornament the horse-chestnut is worthy of planting in large grounds, 

 either singly or in collections, but as producers of food even the edible species are 

 valueless. 



