196 NUT GROWING 



jestic tree, sometimes a hundred feet in height and 

 the trunk three feet or more in diameter, has been 

 a feature of the landscape throughout the range of 

 the species from southern New Brunswick to north- 

 ern Georgia and Alabama. The tree is a favorite 

 in the autumn with nutting parties, and the bushel 

 or two of dried butternuts in the attic furnishes 

 an enjoyable feature of farmhouse provender that 

 is stored up for winter evenings by the fireside. 

 Sugar is made from butternut sap and the immature 

 nuts are pickled. There is danger of disappearance 

 of the wild butternut now that the fungous parasite 

 Melanconium oblongum has grasped this tree in its 

 clutches. The fungus grows very slowly, however, 

 and may not kill a tree in twenty years from the 

 time of the first attack. The spores usually enter 

 at some point of injury. If dead branches are cut 

 out promptly and all exposed wood covered with 

 protecting material we may preserve our orchards 

 of grafted trees in a flourishing condition of health 

 with no more trouble than that belonging to an apple 

 orchard. Aside from the prospective cultivation of 

 superior hybrid varieties of butternuts we may prof- 

 itably grow a limited number of grafted trees of 

 the species which bear particularly good nuts. There 

 are many lovers of the butternut, and the trade is 

 calling for more than the producers are now supply- 

 ing, although the outlook is not to be compared with 

 that of the black walnut, Persian walnut, pecan 

 hickory and hazel. As a grafting stock the butter- 

 nut accepts Persian walnuts, black walnuts, and 



