WALNUTS AND HICKORIES 165 



grown almost to marketable size, liave already 

 been sold " on the stump ' ' to lumbermen. They 

 will soon fall. Indeed, many of them are now 

 being sacrificed. Their need is urgent in the 

 making of rifle stocks. The walnut is a slow- 

 growing tree, and it is said that it takes fully 

 one hundred years for it to grow into the pro- 

 portions necessary for a valuable timber tree. 



The butternut is a smaller tree, with a 

 rougher, more deeply ridged bark than the black 

 walnut. It has a short, stout trunk, and the 

 crown is broad and dome-like, with grayish- 

 green branches. The sticky twigs and young 

 I'eaves are covered with fine short hairs. The 

 nuts are hidden in pointed, oblong, sticky green 

 husks, two or three inches long. When ripe the 

 husks turn brown and begin to decay away from 

 the nut. The shell is cut into rough, deeply fur- 

 rowed ridges. The kernel is sweet and de- 

 licious. Butternut wood is a rich, pale brown, 

 particularly beautiful in the natural finish for 

 house finishing and cabinet work. The tree 

 grows rapidly, but like all the members of the 

 walnut family, it is an easy prey to insect and 

 fungus enemies on account of the chambered 

 pith of its twigs. The butternut grows from 

 New England southward to Georgia and west- 

 ward to the Dakotas and Arkansas. 



