PLANTS WHOSE SEEDS WE EAT II3 



of middle age, burdened in October with the fruit, 

 that falls out of the prickly, opening burs, much 

 as our own chestnuts do in late fall. Tfrey are 

 much bigger fruit than ours, but not so sweet and 

 rich in flavor. These chestnuts are starchy, and 

 nutritious, furnishing a staple food comparable 

 to the potato, though sometimes made into sweets. 



The American nut is not usually cooked, but 

 eaten raw when mature, which is about Christmas 

 time. The shells are thin and tough, but the 

 meats are rich in flavor and very sweet. Roasting 

 cracks the shell and makes the nuts mealy. 



The timber of chestnut trees is especially valu- 

 able for railroad ties, as the wood does not readily 

 decay in contact with the soil. So the lumber 

 business was vitally concerned when, a few years 

 ago, the chestnut trees in the neighborhood of New 

 York City mysteriously died. The swollen twigs 

 of the smitten trees were studded with yellow 

 pellets, or crumbs — the fruiting bodies of the 

 fungous disease that had developed unseen under 

 the bark. Out of these pellets the "blight" dis- 

 charged the spores that were carried away, by 

 wind, and possibly by birds, to spread the infec- 

 tion to healthy trees. The baffling thing is the 

 fact that no spray of Bordeaux mixture, or other 

 fungicide, can be applied to this deadly blight, for 



