PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 361 
A slack barrel has usually ten hoops, flour barrels for instance three at each 
end and two on each side of the center or bulge. As these are made by splitting 
the small poles, it destroys five living hickory trees for each such barrel made. 
Meat barrels, however, are hooped solid, double or treble the number of 
hoops, requiring from 10 to 15 trees to form each tight barrel. 
Consequently the number of hickory trees destroyed each year in the United 
States for cooperage must approximate fifty millions. 
It is not strange that vehicle timbers are becoming difficult to obtain. 
Elm is the principal tree which possesses the requisite toughness and long- 
itudinal strength to make good hoops, and this timber is now growing very scarce. 
Meantime it seems very unwise for carriage manufacturers and those who 
use hickory wood in large quantities, to ignore the subject of future supply and 
rely upon the invention of some material which may take the place of hickory 
wood. 
Not a single manufacturer thinks of planting nuts and growing trees, 
although the matter is possible and would be a good investment upon much of the 
low priced land of the United States. 
By planting systematically and giving proper cultivation, trees of suitable 
size may be grown in twenty-five years. 
The habit of growth of hickory, naturally a straight slender upright stem, 
with corresponding deep tap root; the hickory may be planted much more closely 
than other trees, probably 400 per acre or 12 feet apart each way, and could 
remain in such dense forest until timber suitable for spokes, handles, axles, etc., 
could be secured. 
To prepare a forest of hickory, the land should be of good, deep, rich soil, 
somewhat moist. It should be plowed in the Autumn, and furrowed out not very 
deeply, the furrows being 12 feet apart. 
The nuts should be secured as soon as frost loosens and the wind shakes 
them from the trees. As with the walnut it would be preferable to leave the hulls 
on the nuts, if only for the natural food which it affords the young plant. 
The seed should be planted at once as soon as procured, dropping the nuts 
a foot or so apart in the row and covering with an inch of loose soil. The general 
tule for covering seed of all kinds is depth equal to the diameter of the seed. 
This rule is ignored by many with a result of loss in the vitality of various plants, 
and often greater or less waste in seed. 
The winter frosts help to open the shell and permit the seed to germinate. 
For from two to five years’ careful cultivation will be necessary, or until the trees 
have been established, and are able to overcome annual weeds and grass. 
Any farm crop which requires frequent cultivation may be grown between 
the rows of trees and all being cultivated together, and almost as much corn or 
other crop secured as without the trees. Hickory nuts vary greatly in size, some 
being a half inch diameter, and nearly round, while others are one and a half 
inches and flattened. After removing the hulls the small shellbark nuts run 3,800 
per bushel, and before the hulls are removed 1,500 per bushel. An acre planted 
1x12 feet requiring one bushel after the hulls are removed. 
Pecans are as good for planting, as the pecan tree is hardy in the middle 
north states, but they do not bear fruit, except in the south. 
