Chapter IV: Part II: The Nut Trees (1)

The Walnuts--The Hickories--The Beech--The Chestnuts--The
Oaks--The White Oak Group--The Black Oak Group--The
Horse-Chestnuts, or Buckeyes--The Lindens, or Basswoods

THE WALNUTS

Hickories are included with their near relatives, the walnuts, in one of the most important of all our native tree groups. They are distinct, yet they have many traits in common--the flowers and the nut fruits, the hard resinous wood, with aromatic sap and leaves of many leaflets, instead of a single blade.

The walnuts are decidedly "worth knowing." All produce valuable timber and edible nuts, and all are good shade trees. Four native walnuts are well known in this country, for in October, every tree in every bit of woods is likely to be visited by school boys with bags, eager to gather the nuts before some other boy finds the tree, and thus establishes a prior claim upon it. The curiously gnawed shells outside the winter storehouse of some furry woods-dweller reveal the most successful competitor boys have, the constant watcher of the nut trees, a harvester who works at nothing else while the season is on.

=The Southwestern Walnut=

_Juglans rupestris_, Engelm.

The walnut of the Southwest grows into a spreading, luxuriant tree, where its roots find water. But on the canyon sides, and higher on mountain slopes, it becomes a stunted shrub, because of lack of moisture.

The nut is smaller than that of the eastern walnuts and has a thick shell, but the kernel is sweet and keeps its rich flavor for a long time. The Mexicans and Indians are glad to have this nut added to the stores they gather for their winter food.

One striking feature of this tree is the pale, cottony down on its twigs, which sometimes persists three or four years. The long limbs droop at the extremities, almost deserving to be called "weeping." But nothing could be more cheerful in color than the yellow-green foliage, shining in the sun, against the white bark of the tree. In autumn the foliage turns bright yellow. A specimen, much admired, grows in the Arnold Arboretum in Boston.

=The California Walnut=

_J. californica_, Wats.

The California walnut is a stocky, round-headed tree, with heavy, drooping branches, and bark that is white and smooth on limbs and on trunks of young trees. Ultimately the trunk turns nearly black, and is checked into broad, irregular ridges. In bottom lands, along the courses of rivers, back thirty miles from the coast, these trees are found, from the Sacramento Valley to the southern slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains.

The foliage is bright pale green, feathery, the leaflets often curved to sickle form, showing paler silky linings. Californians admire and plant this tree for shade and ornament. Its greatest value is as a hardy stock upon which the "English" walnut is grafted by nurserymen, for planting orchards of this commercial nut. The fruit of the native nut is excellent, but it cannot compete with the thin-shelled nut that came from Persia, _via_ England.

=The Butternut, White Walnut, or Oilnut=

_J. cinerea_, Linn.

In eastern woods the butternut is known by its long, pointed nuts, with deeply and raggedly sculptured shells, in fuzzy, clammy, sticky husks that stain the hands of him who attempts to get at the oily meat before the husks are dry. This dark stain was an important dye in the time when homespun cotton cloth was worn by men and boys. The modern khaki resembles in color the "butternut jeans," in which backwoods regiments of the Civil War were clad. Butternut husks and bark yield also a drug of cathartic properties.

Pickling green oilnuts in their husks is a housewifely industry, on the summer programme of many housewives still, if the woods near by furnish the raw material for employing her great-grandmother's recipe, brought from England, or perhaps from France. The green nuts are tested with a knitting needle. If it goes through them with no difficulty, and yet the nuts are of good size, they are ready. Vigorous rubbing removes the fuzz after the nuts are scalded. Then they are pickled whole, in spiced vinegar, and are a rare, delectable relish with meats for the winter table.

_See page 42_]

_See page 31_]

A butternut tree, beside the road, or elsewhere, with room to grow, has a short trunk, and a low, broad head, with a downward droop to the horizontal limbs. The bark is light brown, the limbs grayish green, the twigs and leaves all ooze a clammy, waxy, aromatic sap, and are covered with fine hairs of velvety abundance.

Because it is low and rather wayward in growth, late to leaf out in spring, and early to shed its leaves in summer, the butternut is not a good street tree. It breaks easily in the wind, and crippled trees are more common than well-grown specimens. Insect and fungous enemies beset the species, and take advantage of breaks to invade the twigs through the chambered pith. Short-lived trees they are, whose brown, satiny wood is used in cabinet work, but is not plentiful.

=The Black Walnut=

_J. nigra_, Linn.

The black walnut (_see illustrations, pages 31, 70_) is the second species east of the Rocky Mountains, and the tree chiefly depended upon, during the century just closed, by the makers of furniture of the more expensive grades. Black walnut wood is brown, with purplish tones in it, and a silvery lustre, when polished. Its hardness and strength commend it to the boat and ship builder. Gunstock factories use quantities of this wood. In furniture and interior woodwork, the curly walnut, found in the old stumps of trees cut long before, is especially sought for veneering panels. Old furniture, of designs that have passed out, are often sold to the factories, and their seasoned wood cut thin for veneering.

Walnut trees one hundred and fifty feet high were not uncommon in the forests primeval, in the basin of the Ohio and Wabash rivers. These giants held up their majestic heads far over the tops of oaks and maples in the woods. They were slaughtered, rolled together, and burned by the pioneers, clearing the land for agriculture. These men had a special grudge against walnut trees, they were so stubborn--so hard to make away with. How unfortunate it is that our ancestors had the patience to go forward and conquer the unconquerable ones. Had they weakly surrendered, and let these trees stand, we should have had them for the various uses to which we put the finest lumber trees to-day.

Unhappily, the growing of young trees has not been extensively undertaken to replace those destroyed. The newer forestry is awake to the need, and the loss may be made good, from this time forward.

The black walnut is nearly globular, deeply sculptured, with a sweet nut rich in oil, very good if one eats but a few at a time. Locally, they find their way to market, but they soon become rancid in the grocer's barrel. At home, boys spread them, in their smooth, yellow-pitted husks, on the roof of the woodshed, for instance, so the husks can dry while the nuts are seasoning. No walnut opens its husk in regular segments, as the hickories all do. But the husking is not hard. The thick shells require careful management of the hammer or nut-cracker, to avoid breaking the meats.

Dark as is its wood and bark, no walnut tree in full leaf is sombre. The foliage is bright, lustrous, yellow-green, graceful, dancing. A majestic tree, with a luxuriant crown from May till September, this walnut needs room to display its notable contour and size. It deserves more popularity than it enjoys as a tree for parks. No tree is more interesting to watch as it grows.

The bitter spongy husk deters the squirrels from gnawing into the nut until the husk is dry and brittle. Hidden in the ground, the shell absorbs moisture, and winter frost cracks it, by the gentle but irresistible force of expanding particles of water as they turn to ice. So the plantlet has no hindrance to its growth when spring opens.

Imitating nature, the nurseryman lays his walnuts and butternuts in a bed of sand or gravel, one layer above another, and lets the rain and the cold do the rest. In spring the "stratified" nuts are ready for planting. Sometimes careful cracking of the shell prepares the nut to sprout when planted.

The Japanese walnuts (_J. Sieboldiana_ and _J. cordiformis_) are grown to a limited extent in states where the English walnut is not hardy. They are butternuts, and very much superior to our native species. A Manchurian walnut has been successfully introduced, but few people but the pioneers in nut culture know anything about these exotic species. South America and the West Indies have native species. So we shall not be surprised, in our travels, to find walnuts in the woods of many continents.

=The English Walnut=

_J. regia_, Linn.

Originally at home in the forests of Persia and northwestern India, the English walnut was grown for its excellent nuts in the warm countries of Europe and Asia. It was a tree of great reputation when Linnaeus gave it the specific name that means _royal_. Indeed, this is the tree which gave to all the family the name "_Juglans_," which means, "Jove's acorn," in the writings of Roman authors. Kings made each other presents of these nuts, and so the range of the species was extended, even to England, by the planting of nuts from the south.

It became the fad of gardeners, before the fifteenth century, to improve the varieties, and to compete with others in getting the thinnest shell, the largest nut, the sweetest kernel, just as horticulturists do now. In 1640 the herbalist Parkinson wrote about a variety of "French wallnuts, which are the greatest of any, within whose shell are often put a paire of fine gloves, neatly foulded up together." Another variety he mentions "whose shell is so tender that it may easily be broken between one's fingers, and the nut itsself is very sweete."

In England, the climate prevents the ripening of the fruit of walnut trees. But the nuts reach good size, and are pickled green, for use as a relish; or made into catsups--husks and all being used, when a needle will still puncture the fruit with ease.

In America, the first importations of the walnuts came from the Mediterranean countries, by way of England, "the mother country." In contradistinction to our black walnuts and butternuts, these nuts from overseas were called by the loyal colonists "English walnuts," and so they remain to this day in the markets of this country.

It was natural and easy to grow these trees in the Southern states. But little had been done to improve them, or to grow them extensively for market, until California undertook to compete with Europe for the growing American trade. Now the crop reaches thousands of tons of nuts, and millions of dollars come back each year to the owners of walnut ranches. Hardy varieties have extended the range of nut-orcharding; and so has the grafting of tender varieties on stock of the native black walnut of California.

The beauty of this Eurasian walnut tree would justify planting it merely for the adornment of parks and private grounds. Its broad dome of bright green foliage in summer, and its clean gray trunk and bare branches in winter, are attractive features in a landscape that has few deciduous trees. A fine dooryard tree that bears delicious nuts, after furnishing a grateful shade all summer, is deserving the popularity it enjoys with small farmers and owners of the simplest California homes.

As a lumber tree, the walnut of Europe has long been commercially important. It is the staple wood for gun-stocks, and during wars the price has reached absurd heights, one country bidding against its rival to get control of the visible supply. Furniture makers use quantities of the curly walnut often found in stumps of old trees. The heart wood, always a rich brown, is often watered and crimped in curious and intricate patterns, that when polished blend the loveliest dark and light shades with the characteristic walnut lustre, to reward the skilled craftsman.

In the United States this wood is rarely seen, because the trees are grown for their nuts. They require several years to come into bearing, are long-lived, have few enemies, and need little pruning as bearing age approaches.

THE HICKORIES

Americans have a right to be proud that the twelve hickory species are all natives of this country. Eleven of the twelve are found in the eastern half of the United States; one, only, strays into the forests of Mexico. No other country has a native hickory.

Indians of the Algonkin tribe named this tree family, and taught the early colonists in Virginia to use for food the ripe nuts of the shagbark and mockernut. After cracking the shells, the procedure was to boil and strain the mixture, which gave them a rich, soupy liquid. Into this they stirred a coarse meal, made by grinding between stones the Indian corn. The mush was cooked slowly, then made into cakes, which were baked on hot stones. No more delicious nor wholesome food can be imagined than this. Frequently the soup was eaten alone; its name, "Powcohicora," gave the trees their English name, part of which the botanist, Rafinesque, took, Latinized, and set up as the name of the genus.

Cut a twig of any hickory tree, and you realize that the wood is close-grained and very springy. The pith is solid, with a star form in cross-section, corresponding to the ranking of the leaves on the twigs. The wind strews no branches under a hickory tree, for the fibres of the wood are strong and flexible enough to resist a hurricane. (_See illustrations, pages 6, 71._)

Hickory wood is unequalled for implements which must resist great strain and constant jarring. The running-gear of wagons and carriages, handles of pitchforks, axes, and like implements require it. Thin strips, woven into baskets for heavy market use, are almost indestructible. No fuel is better than seasoned hickory wood.

=Shagbark or Shellbark=

_Hicoria ovata_, Britt.

The shagbark has gray bark that is shed in thin, tough, vertical strips. Attached by the middle, these strips often spring outward, at top and bottom, giving the bole a most untidy look (_see illustrations, pages 6, 71_), and threatening the trousers of any boy bold enough to try climbing into the smooth-barked top to beat off the nuts.

In spite of the ragged-looking trunk, a shagbark grown in the open is a noble tree. The limbs are angular, but they express strength to the utmost twig, as the bare oblong of the tree's lofty head is etched against a wintry sky.

The nuts are the chief blessing this tree confers upon the youngsters of any neighborhood. Individual trees differ in the size and quality of their fruit. The children know the best trees, and so do the squirrels, their chief competitors at harvest time.

Frost causes the eager lads to seek their favorite trees, and underneath they find the four-parted husks dropping away from the angled nuts. There is no waiting, as with walnuts, for husking time to come. The tree is prompt about dropping its fruit. Spread for a few weeks, where they can dry, and thieving squirrels will let them alone, hickory nuts reach perfect condition for eating. Fat, proteid, and carbohydrates are found in concentrated form in those delicious meats. We may not know their dietetic value, but we all remember how good and how satisfying they are. No tree brings to the human family more valuable offerings than this one, rugged and ragged though it be.

=The Big Shellbark=

_H. lacinata_, Sarg.

The big shellbark, like the little shellbark, is a common forest tree in the Middle West and Middle Atlantic states. It has a shaggy trunk, stout limbs, picturesquely angular, and it bears nuts that are sweet and of delicious flavor. In winter the orange-colored twigs, large terminal buds, and persistent stems of the dead leaves are distinguishing traits. These petioles shed the five to nine long leaflets and then stay on, their enlarged bases firmly tied by fibre bundles to the scar, though the stems writhe and curve as if eager to be free to die among the fallen blades.

"King nuts," as the fruit of this tree is labelled in the markets, do not equal the little hickory nuts in quality, and their thick shells cover meats very little larger. But the nut in its husk on the tree is often three inches long--a very impressive sight to hungry nut-gatherers.

In summer the downy leaf-linings and the uncommon size of the leaves best distinguish this tree from its near relative, whose five leaflets are smooth throughout, small, very rarely counting seven.

WHITE OAK]

BUR, OR MOSSY-CUP, OAK--LEAVES AND FRUIT]

=The Pecan=

_H. Pecan_, Britt.

The pecan tree bears the best nuts in the hickory family. This species is coming to be a profitable orchard tree in many sections of the South. Most of the pecan nuts in the market come from wild trees in the Mississippi Basin. But late years have seen great strides taken to establish pecan growing as a paying horticultural enterprise in states outside, as well as within, the tree's natural range. And these efforts are succeeding.

Experiment stations have tested seedling trees and selected varieties of known merit, until they know by actual experiment that pecans can be raised successfully in the Carolinas and in other states where the native species does not grow wild. Thin-shelled varieties, with the astringent red shell-lining almost eliminated, have been bred by selection, and propagated by building on native stock. The trees have proved to be fast-growing, early-fruiting, and easy to grow and protect from enemies.

The market pays the highest price for pecans. The popularity of this nut is deserved, because by analysis it has the highest food value combined with the most delicate and delicious flavor. No nut is so rich in nutriment. None has so low a percentage of waste. The demand for nuts is constantly increasing as the public learns that the proteid the body needs can be obtained from nuts as well as from meat.

Pecans have suffered in competition with other nuts because they are difficult to get out of the shells without breaking the meats. The old-fashioned hammer and block is not the method for them. A cracker I saw in use on the street corner in Chicago delighted me. Clamped to the nut-vendor's stall, it received the nut between two steel cups and, by the turn of a wheel, crowded it so that the shell buckled and broke where it is thinnest, around the middle, and the meat came out whole.

=The Mockernut=

_H. alba_, Britt.

The mockernut is a mockery to him who hopes for nuts like those of either shagbark. The husk is often three inches long. Inside is a good-sized nut, angled above the middle, suggesting the shagbark. But what a thick, obstinate shell, when one attempts to "break and enter!" And what a trifling, insipid meat one finds, to repay the effort! Quite often there is nothing but a spongy remnant or the shell is empty. (_See illustration, page 7._)

As a shade tree, the mockernut has real value, showing in winter a tall, slender pyramidal form, with large terminal buds tipping the velvety, resinous twigs. The bark is smooth as that of an ash, with shallow, wavy furrows, as if surfaced with a silky layer of new healing tissue, thrown up to fill up all depressions. Mockernut leaves are large, downy, yellow-green, turning to gold in autumn. Crushed they give out an aroma suggesting a delicate perfume.

The flowers are abundant, and yet the most surprising show of colors on this tree comes in late April, when the great buds swell. The outer scales fall, and the inner ones expand into ruddy silken sheathes that stand erect around the central cluster of leaves, not yet awake, and every branch seems to hold up a great red tulip! The sight is wonderful. Nothing looks more flower-like than these opening hickory buds, and to the unobserving passerby the transformation is nothing short of a miracle. In a day, the leaves rise and spread their delicate leaflets, lengthening and becoming smooth, as the now useless red scales fall in a shower to the ground.

=The Pignut=

_H. glabra_, Britt.

The pignut deserves the better name, "smooth hickory," a more ingratiating introduction to strangers. A graceful, symmetrical tree, with spreading limbs that end in delicate, pendulous branches, and gray bark checked into a maze of intersecting furrows, it is an ornament to any park, even in the dead of winter. In summer the tree laughs in the face of the sun, its smooth, glossy, yellow-green leaflets, five to seven on a stem, lined with pale green or yellow. In spring the clustered fringes among the opening leaves are the green and gold stamen flowers. The curiously angled fertile flowers, at the tips of twigs, are green, with yellow stigmas. Autumn turns the foliage to orange and brown, and lets fall the pear-shaped or rounded fruit, each nut obscurely four-angled and held fast at the base by the thin, 4-ridged husk, that splits scarcely to the middle. The kernel is insipid, sometimes bitter, occasionally rather sweet. Country boys scorn the pignut trees, leaving their fruit for eager but unsophisticated nut-gatherers from the towns.

Pigs used to be turned into the woods to fatten on beech- and oak-"mast." They eagerly devoured the thin-shelled nuts of _H. glabra_, and thus the tree earned the friendly regard of farmers, and a name that preserves an interesting bit of pioneer history.

The range of the pignut is from Maine to Florida on the Atlantic seaboard, west to the middle of Nebraska and Texas, and from Ontario and Michigan south to the Gulf.

THE BEECH

=The American Beech=

_Fagus Americanus_, Sweet.

One of the most widely distributed trees in our country, this is also one of the most useful and most beautiful in any forest. It is the sole representative of its genus in the Western Hemisphere. One species is a valuable timber tree in Europe. Three are natives of Asia. A genus near of kin includes the beech trees of the Southern Hemisphere, twelve species in all. There is closer resemblance, however, between our beeches and their next of kin, the chestnuts and oaks.

From the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from Florida to Texas, from New England to Wisconsin, beech trees grow; and where they grow they are very likely to form "pure forests," on the slopes of mountains and rich river bottoms. The largest specimens grow in the basin of the lower Ohio River, and on the warm slopes of the Alleghany Mountains.

Standing alone, with room for full development, the beech is a fine, symmetrical tree, with horizontal or slightly drooping branches, numerous, thickly set with slender, flexible twigs. The stout trunk supports a round or conical head of very dense foliage. One hundred and twenty feet is the maximum height, with a trunk diameter of three to four feet. (_See illustrations, pages 22, 30._)

The older the trees, the greater the amount of red heart wood in proportion to the white sap-wood, next to the bark. Red and white beech wood are distinguished by lumbermen. Red beech makes superior floors, toolhandles, chairs, and the like, and there is no more perfect fuel than seasoned beech wood.

It is unreasonable to think that any but the blind could live where beech trees grow and not know these trees at a glance. The bark is close, unfurrowed, gray, often almost white, and marked with blotches, often nearly round of paler hue.

The branches are dark and smooth and the twigs polished to the long, pointed winter buds. Throughout, the tree is a model of elegant attire, both in color and texture of the investing bark.

In the growing season the leaves are the tree's chief attraction. They are closely plaited, and covered with silvery down, when the bud scales are pushed off in the spring. In a day, the protective fuzz disappears, and the full-grown leaf is seen, thin, strongly feather-veined, uniformly green, saw-toothed. Summer shows the foliage mass almost as fresh, and autumn turns its green to pale gold. Still unblemished, it clings, often until the end of winter, lighting the woods with a ghostly glow, as the rain fades the color out. The silky texture is never quite lost.

The delicate flowers of the beech tree are rarely seen, they fade so soon; the stamen tassels drop off and the forming nuts, with their prickly burs, are more and more in evidence in the leaf angles near the ends of new shoots. With the first frost the burs open, the four walls part, releasing the two nuts, three-angled, like a grain of buckwheat.

The name of this grain was suggested by its resemblance in form to the beechnut, or "buck mast," sweet, nutritious food of so many dwellers in the forest. Buck mast was the food of man when he lived in caves and under the forest cover. We know that beechnuts have a rich, delicate flavor that offsets the disadvantages of their small size and the difficulty of opening their thin but leathery shells. All along the centuries European peoples have counted on this nut, and oil expressed from it, for their own food and the dried leaves for forage for their cattle in winter.

The American pioneer turned his hogs into the beech woods to fatten on the beech-mast, and Thanksgiving turkeys were always finer if they competed with the wild turkey on the same fare.

Birds and lesser mammals do much to plant trees when they carry away, for immediate or future use, seeds that are not winged for flight. Beechnuts are light enough to profit, to some extent, by a high wind. And beech trees in their infancy do well under the shade of other trees. So each fruiting tree is the mother of many young ones. But the seedling trees are not so numerous and important as the sapling growth that rises from the roots of parent trees. By these alone, a few isolated beeches will manage to take possession of the ground around them and to clothe it with so dense a foliage screen that all young growth, except certain ferns and grasses, dies for lack of sun. Before we can realize what is going on, the tract is a pure forest of beech, rapidly enlarging on all sides by the same campaign of extension.

THE CHESTNUTS

=Chestnut and Chinquapin=

_Castanea dentata_, Borh., and _C. pumila_, Mill.

Our native chestnut and its little brother, the chinquapin, are the American cousins of the sweet chestnut of southern Europe. Japan has contributed to American horticulture a native species which bears large but not very sweet nuts, that are good when cooked. Our two trees bear sweet nuts, of a flavor that no mode of cooking improves. In truth, there is no finer nut; and the time to enjoy it to the highest degree is a few weeks after the frost opens the burs and lets the nuts fall. "Along about Thanksgiving," they have lost some of their moisture and are prime.

In foreign countries the chestnut is a rich, nourishing food, comparable to the potato. Who could go into ecstasies over a vegetable that is a staple food for the peasants of Europe, Asia, and North Africa? Our chestnut is no staple. It is a delicacy. It is treasure trove from the autumn woods, and the gathering of the crop is a game in which boys and squirrels are rivals.

Ernest Thompson Seton, always a boy, knows the impatience with which the opening of the burs is watched for, as the belated frosts keep off, and the burs hang tantalizingly closed. The cruel wounds made by the spines and the raw taste of the immature nuts are poor recompense for the labor of nutting before Nature gives the sign that all's ready.

Here is Mr. Seton's estimate of the chestnut of "brown October's woods."

"Whenever you see something kept under lock and key, bars and bolts, guarded and double-guarded, you may be sure it is very precious, greatly coveted. The nut of this tree is hung high aloft, wrapped in a silk wrapper, which is enclosed in a case of sole leather, which again is packed in a mass of shock-absorbing, vermin-proof pulp, sealed up in a waterproof, ironwood case, and finally cased in a vegetable porcupine of spines, almost impregnable. There is no nut so protected; there is no nut in our woods to compare with it as food."

What a disaster then is the newly arisen bark disease that has already killed every chestnut tree throughout large areas in the Eastern states. Scientists have thus far struggled with it in vain and it is probable that all chestnuts east of the Rockies are doomed.

Chinquapins grow to be medium-sized trees in Texas and Arkansas, but east of the Mississippi they are smaller, and east of the Alleghanies, mere shrubby undergrowth, covering rocky banks or crouching along swamp borders. They are smaller throughout, but resemble the chestnut in leaf, flowers, and fruit. The bur contains a single nut.

The chestnut tree grows large and attains great age, its sturdy, rough gray trunk crowned with an oblong head of irregular branches, hidden in summer by the abundant foliage mass. (_See illustration, page 23._) The ugly cripple that lightning has maimed covers its wounds when May wakes the late-opening buds and the leaves attain full size.

Each leaf tapers at both ends, its length three or four times its width. Strong-ribbed and sharp-toothed, and wavy on the midrib, dark, polished, like leather, these units form a wonderful dome, lightened in midsummer by the pencil-like plumes of the staminate flowers, with the fertile ones at their bases. As autumn comes on the leaf crown turns to gold, and the mature fruits are still green spiny balls. The first frost and the time to drop the nuts are dates that every schoolboy knows come close together.

When a chestnut tree falls by the axe, the roots restore the loss by sending up sprouts around the stump. The mouldering pile nourishes a circle of young trees, full of vigor, because they have the large tree's roots gathering food for them. No wonder their growth is rapid.

Besides this mode of reproduction, chestnut trees, growing here and there throughout a mixed forest, are the offspring of trees whose nuts were put away, or dropped and lost by squirrels. When spring relieves the danger of famine, many of the rodent class abandon their winter stores before they are all devoured. Such caches add many nut trees to our native woods.

THE OAKS

This is the great family of the cup-bearers, whose fruit, the acorn, is borne in a scaly cup that never breaks into quarters, as does the husk that holds a chestnut, beechnut, or hickory nut. All oak trees bear acorns as soon as they come to fruiting age. This is the sign by which they are known the world over. Seldom is a full-grown oak without its little insignia, for the cups cling after the nut falls, and one grand division of the family requires two seasons to mature its fruit. For this reason, half-grown acorns are seen on the twigs after the ripe ones fall.

We cannot say of oak trees that they all have sturdy trunks, rough bark, and gnarled limbs, for not all of them have these characteristics. But there is a certain likeness in oak leaves. They are simple, five-ranked, generally oval, and the margins are generally cut into lobes by deep or shallow bays. Most oak leaves have leathery texture, strong veins, and short petioles. They are leaves that outlast the summer, and sometimes persist until spring growth unseats the stalks; sometimes, as in the "live oaks," they hang on three to five years.

The twigs of oak trees are more or less distinctly five-angled, and the winter buds cluster at the ends. This insures a group of young shoots, crowded with leaves, on the ends of branches, and a dense outer dome of foliage on the tree.

Nearly three hundred distinct species of oaks are recognized by botanists, and the list is growing. New species are in the making. For instance, a white oak and a bur oak grow near enough for the wind to "cross-fertilize" their pistillate flowers. The acorns of such mixed parentage produce trees that differ from both parents, yet reveal characteristics of both. They are "hybrids," and may be called new varieties of either parent. Other species of oak are intercrossing by the same process--the interchange of pollen at the time of blossoming. This proves that the oak family is young, compared with many other families, whose members are too distantly related to intercross.

Though geologically young, the oak family is one of the most important, furnishing timber of superior strength and durability for bridge-building, ship-building, and other construction work. Tanning has depended largely upon oak bark. As fuel, all oak trees are valuable.

Fifty species of oak are native to North American forests. Twice as many grow east of the Rocky Mountains as west of the Great Divide. No species naturally passes this barrier. The temperate zone species extend southward into tropical regions, by keeping to high altitudes. Thus we find American oaks in the Andes and Colombia; Asiatic species occur in the Indian Archipelago. No Old World species is native to America. Each continent has its own.

East of the Rocky Mountains the oaks hold a place of preA"minence among broad-leaved trees. They are trees of large size, and they often attain great age. They are beautiful trees, and therefore highly valued for ornamental planting. This has led to the introduction of oaks from other countries. We have set European, Japanese, and Siberian oaks in our finest parks. Europe has borrowed from our woods the red oak and many others. All countries are richer by this horticultural exchange of trees.

Our native oaks fall into two groups: the annual-fruiting and the biennial-fruiting species. The first group matures its acorns in a single season; the second requires two seasons. It happens that annuals have leaves with rounded lobes, while biennials have leaves with lobes that end in angles and bristly tips. The bark of the annual trees is generally pale; that of the biennials, dark. Hence the white oak group and the black oak group may be easily distinguished at a glance, by the bark, the leaf, and the acorn crop.

THE WHITE OAK GROUP

=The White Oak=

_Quercus alba_, Linn.

The white oak has no rival for first place in the esteem of tree-lover and lumberman. Its broad, rounded dome, sturdy trunk, and strong arms (_see illustration, page 38_), and its wide-ranging roots enable a solitary tree to resist storms that destroy or maim other kinds. Strength and tenacity in the fibre of root and branch make it possible for individuals to live to a great age, far beyond the two centuries required to bring it to maturity. Such trees stir within us a feeling of reverence and patriotism. They are patriarchs whose struggles typify the pioneer's indomitable resistance to forces that destroyed all but the strong.

White oak trees in the forest grow tall, lose their lower branches early, and lift but a small head to the sun. The logs, quarter-sawed, reveal the broad, gleaming "mirrors" that make a white oak table beautiful. The botanist calls these the _medullary rays_--thin, irregular plates of tissue-building cells, that extend out from the central pith, sometimes quite to the sap-wood, crowding between the wood fibres, which in the heart-wood are no longer alive. A slab will show only an edge of these mirrors. But any section from bark to pith will reveal them.

The pale brown wood of the white oak distinctly shows the narrow rings of annual growth. Each season begins with a coarse, porous band of "_spring wood_," followed by a narrower band of fine, close-grained "_summer wood_." White oak is streaked with irregular, dark lines. These are the porous lines of spring wood, discolored by foreign matter. Count them, allow a year for each, and you know how long one white oak tree required to make an inch of wood.

The supreme moment in the white oak's year comes in spring, when the gray old tree wakes, the buds swell and cast off their brown scales, and the young leaves appear. The tree is veiled, not with a garment of green, but with a mist of rose and silver, each twig hung with soft limp velvety leaves, red-lined, and covered with a close mat of silky hairs. It is a spectacle that seems unreal, because it is so lovely and gone so soon. The protecting hairs and pigments disappear, and the green leafage takes its place, brightened by the yellow tassels of the stamen flowers, and the growing season is on.

In autumn the pale-lined leaves of the white oak turn slowly to sombre violet and dull purplish tones. Clinging there, after the acorns have all fallen and been gathered by squirrels, the foliage fades into the gray of the bark and may persist until spring growth sets in.

=The Bur Oak=

_Q. macrocarpa_, Michx.

The bur oak (_see illustration, page 39_) is called the mossy-cup on account of the loose, fringed scales about the rim of the cup that holds the large acorn--largest in the whole oak family. Often the nut is completely enclosed by the cup; often it is small. This variable fruit is sweet, and it is the winter store of many furry wood-folk.

The leaf has the rounded lobing of the family, with the special peculiarity of being almost cut in two by a pair of deep and wide opposite sinuses, between the broad middle, and the narrow, tapering base. Not all leaves show this odd form, but it is the prevailing pattern. The dark green blade has a pale, fuzzy lining, that lasts until the leaves turn brown and yellow.

The bur oak is a rugged, ragged tree, compared with the white oak. Its irregular form is picturesque, its wayward limbs are clothed in a loose garment of untidy, half-shed bark. The twigs are roughened with broad, corky wings. The trunk is brownish, with loosened flakes of gray, separated by shallow fissures.

The wood is classed with white oak, though darker in color. It has the same ornamental mirrors, dear to the heart of the cabinet-maker. It serves all the purposes for which a tough, strong, durable wood is needed.

The range of the species is from Nova Scotia to Montana, and it grows in large tracts from Winnipeg to Texas, doing well in the arid soil of western Nebraska and Dakota. Suckers from the roots spread these trees till they form the "oak openings" of the bluffs of the Missouri and other streams of Iowa and Minnesota. In Kansas it is the commonest oak tree. The largest trees of this species grow in rich bottom lands in the Ohio Valley.

=The Post Oak=

_Q. minor_, Sarg.

The post oak has wood that is noted for its durability when placed in contact with the soil. It is in demand for fence posts, railroad ties, and for casks and boat timbers. "Iron oak" is a name that refers to the qualities of the wood. "Knees" of post oak used to be especially in demand.

In the Mississippi Basin this tree attains its largest size and greatest abundance on gravelly uplands. It is the commonest oak of central Texas, on the sandy plains and limestone hills. Farther north, it is more rare and smaller, becoming an undersized oak in New York and westward to Kansas.

In winter the post oak keeps its cloak of harsh-feeling, thick, coarse-veined leaves. Tough fibres fasten them to the twigs. In summer the foliage mass is almost black, with gray leaf-linings. The lobes and sinuses are large and squarish, the blades four or five inches long. The limbs, tortuous, horizontal, form a dense head.

=The Chestnut Oak=

_Q. Prinus_, Linn.

The chestnut oak has many nicknames and all are descriptive. Its leaves are similar in outline and size to those of the chestnut. The margin is coarsely toothed, not lobed, like the typical oak leaf. "Tanbark oak" refers to the rich store of tannin in the bark, which makes this species the victim of the bark-peeler for the tanneries wherever it grows. "Rock chestnut oak" is a title that lumbermen have given to the oak with exceptionally hard wood, heavy and durable in soil, adapted for railroad ties, posts, and the like.

Unlike other white oaks, the bark of this tree is dark in color and deeply fissured. Without a look at the leaves, one might call it a black oak.

The centre of distribution for this species seems to be the foothill country of the Appalachian Mountains, in Tennessee and North Carolina. Here it predominates, and grows to its largest size. From Maine to Georgia it chooses rocky, dry uplands, grows vigorously and rapidly, and its acorns often sprout before falling from the cup!

The chestnut oak is one of the most desirable kinds of trees to plant in parks. It is symmetrical, with handsome bark and foliage. The leaves turn yellow and keep their fine texture through the season. The acorn is one of the handsomest and largest, and squirrels are delighted with its sweet kernel.

=The Mississippi Valley Chestnut Oak=

_Q. acuminata_, Sarg.

In the Mississippi Valley the chestnut oak is _Q. acuminata_, Sarg., with a more slender and more finely-toothed leaf that bears a very close resemblance to that of the chestnut. The foliage mass is brilliant, yellow-green, each leaf with a pale lining, and hung on a flexible stem. "Yellow oak" is another name, earned again when in autumn the leaves turn to orange shades mingled with red.

On the Wabash River banks these trees surpass one hundred feet in height and three feet in diameter. The base of the trunk is often buttressed. Back from the rich bottom lands, on limestone and flinty ridges, where water is scarce, these trees are stunted. In parks they are handsome, and very desirable. The bark is silvery white, tinged with brown, and rarely exceeds one half an inch in thickness.

=The Swamp White Oak=

_Q. platanoides_, Sudw.

The swamp white oak loves to stand in wet ground, sometimes even in actual swamps. Its small branches shed their bark like the buttonwood, the flakes curling back and showing the bright green under layer. On the trunk the bark is thick, and broken irregularly into broad, flat ridges coated with close, gray-brown scales often tinged with red.

HORSE-CHESTNUT IN BLOSSOM]

WEEPING WILLOW]

In its youth the swamp white oak is comely and symmetrical, its untidy moulting habit concealed by the abundant foliage. One botanist calls this species _bicolor_, because the polished yellow-green upper surfaces contrast so pleasantly with the white scurf that lines each leaf throughout the summer. Yellow is the autumn color. Never a hint of red warms this oak of the swamps, even when planted as a street or park tree in well-drained ground.

=The Basket Oak=

_Q. Michauxii_, Nutt.

The basket oak is so like the preceding species as to be listed by some botanists as the southern form of _Q. platanoides_. They meet on a vague line that crosses Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Both have large leaves silver-lined, with undulating border, of the chestnut oak pattern. Both are trees of the waterside, tall, with round heads of gnarled limbs. The red-tinged white bark sets the basket oak apart from all others. Its head is broader and its trunk stouter than in the other species. The paired acorns are almost without stalks, the nuts large, the kernels sweet. In autumn, farmers turn their hogs into the woods to fatten on this oak-mast. The edibility of these nuts may account for the common name, "cow oak."

The wood splits readily into thin, tough plates of the summer wood. This is because the layer formed in spring is very porous. Bushel baskets, china crates, and similar woven wares are made of these oak splints. The wood is also used in cooperage and implement construction, and it makes excellent firewood.

=The Live Oak=

_Q. Virginiana_, Mill.

The live oak with its small oval leaves, without a cleft in the plain margins, looks like anything but an oak to the Northerner who walks along a street planted with this evergreen in Richmond or New Orleans. It is not especially good for street use, though often chosen. It develops a broad, rounded dome, by the lengthening of the irregular limbs in a horizontal direction. The trunk becomes massive and buttressed to support the burden.

The "knees" of this oak were in keenest demand for ship-building before steel took the place of wood. In all lines of construction, this lumber ranks with the best white oak. The short trunk is the disadvantage, from the lumberman's viewpoint. Its beauty, when polished, would make it the wood _par excellence_ for elegant furniture, except that it is difficult to work, and it splits easily.

The Spanish moss that drapes the limbs of live oaks in the South gives them a greenish pallor and an unkempt appearance that seems more interesting than beautiful to many observers. It is only when the sight is familiar, I think, that it is pleasing. Northern trees are so clean-limbed and so regular about shedding their leaves when they fade, that these patient hosts, loaded down with the pendent skeins of the tillandsia, seem to be imposed upon. In fact, the "moss" is not a parasite, sapping the life of the tree, but a lodger, that finds its own food supply without help.

=California White Oak=

_Q. lobata_, NA(C)e.

The California white oak far exceeds the Eastern white oak in the spread of its mighty arms. The dome is often two hundred feet in breadth and the trunk reaches ten feet in diameter. Such specimens are often low in proportion, the trunk breaking into its grand divisions within twenty feet of the ground. The ultimate spray is made of slender, supple twigs, on which the many-lobed leaves taper to the short stalks. Dark green above, the blades are lined with pale pubescence. The acorns are slender, pointed, and often exceed two inches in length. Their cups are comparatively shallow, and they fall out when ripe.

The bare framework of one of these giant oaks shows a wonderful maze of gnarled branches, whose grotesque angularities are multiplied with added years and complicated by damage and repair.

It is hard to say whether the grace and nobility of the verdure-clad tree, or the tortuous branching system revealed in winter, appeals more strongly to the admiration of the stranger and the pride of the native Californian, who delights in this noble oak at all seasons. Its comparatively worthless wood has spared the trees to adorn the park-like landscapes of the wide middle valleys of the state.

=Pacific Post Oak=

_Q. Garryana_, Hook.

The Pacific post oak is the only oak in British Columbia, whence it follows down the valleys of the Coast Range to the Santa Cruz Mountains. It is a tree nearly one hundred feet high, with a broad, compact head, in western Washington and Oregon. Dark green, lustrous leaves, with paler linings, attain almost a leathery texture when full grown. They are four to six inches long and coarsely lobed. In autumn they sometimes turn bright scarlet.

The wood is hard, strong, tough, and close-grained. It is employed in the manufacture of wagons and furniture, and in ship-building and cooperage. It is a superior fuel.

THE BLACK OAK GROUP

A large group of our native oaks require two seasons to mature their acorns; have dark-colored bark and foliage, have leaves whose lobes are sharp-angled and taper to bristly points and tough acorn shells lined with a silky-hairy coat.

=The Black Oak=

_Q. velutina_, Lam.

The black oak of the vast region east of the Rocky Mountains is the type or pattern species. Its leathery, dark green leaves are divided by curving sinuses into squarish lobes, each ending in one or more bristly tips. The lobes are paired, and each has a strong vein from the midrib. Underneath, the leaf is always scurfy, even when the ripening turns its color from bronze to brown, yellow or dull red.

Under the deep-furrowed, brown surface bark is a yellow layer, rich in tannin, and a dyestuff called _quercitron_. This makes the tree valuable for its bark. The wood is coarse-grained, hard, difficult to work, and chiefly employed as fuel.

A distinguishing trait of the bare tree is the large fuzzy winter bud. The unfolding leaves in spring are bright red above, with a silvery lining.

The autumn acorn crop may be heavy or light. Trees have their "off years," for various reasons. But always, as leaves and fruit fall and bare the twigs, one sees, among the winter buds, the half-grown acorns waiting for their second season of growth.

The pointed nut soon loosens, for the cup though deep has straight sides. The kernel is yellow and bitter.

=The Scarlet Oak=

_Q. coccinea_, Moench.

The scarlet oak is like a flaming torch set among the dull browns and yellows in our autumnal woods. In spring the opening leaves are red; so are the tasselled catkins and the forked pistils, that turn into the acorns later on. This is a favorite ornamental tree in Europe and our own country. Its points of beauty are not all in its colors.

The tree is slender, delicate in branch, twig, and leaf--quite out of the sturdy, picturesque class in which most oaks belong. The leaf is thin, silky smooth, its lobes separated by sinuses so deep that it is a mere skeleton compared with the black oak's. The trimness of the leaf is matched by the neat acorn, whose scaly cup has none of the looseness seen in the burly black oak. The scales are smooth, tight-fitting, and they curl in at the rim.

There is lightness and grace in a scarlet oak, for its twigs are slim and supple as a willow's, and the leaves flutter on long, flexible stems. Above the drifts of the first snowfall, the brilliance of the scarlet foliage makes a picture long to be remembered against the blue of a clear autumnal sky.

The largest trees of this species grow in the fertile uplands in the Ohio Valley. But the most brilliant hues are seen in trees of smaller size, that grow in New England woods. In the comparatively dull-hued autumn woods of Iowa and Nebraska the scarlet oak is the most vivid and most admired tree.

=The Pin Oak=

_Q. palustris_, Linn.

The pin oak earns its name by the sharp, short, spur-like twigs that cluster on the branches, crowding each other to death and then persisting to give the tree a bristly appearance. The tree in winter bears small resemblance to other oaks. The trunk is slender, the shaft carried up to the top, as straight as a pine's. The branches are very numerous and regular, striking out at right angles from the stem, the lower tier shorter than those directly above them, and drooping often to the ground.

On the winter twigs, among the characteristic "pins," are the half-grown acorns that proclaim the tree an oak beyond a doubt, and a _black_ oak, requiring a second summer for the maturing of its fruit. It is likely that there will be found on older twigs a few of the full-grown acorns, or perhaps only the trim, shallow saucers from which the shiny, striped, brown acorns have fallen. Hunt among the dead leaves and these little acorns will be discovered for, though pretty to look at, they are bitter and squirrels leave them where they fall.

The leaves match the slender twigs in delicacy of pattern. Thin, deeply cut, shining, with pale linings, they flutter on slender stems, smaller but often matching the leaves of the scarlet oak in pattern. Sometimes they are more like the red oak in outline. In autumn they turn red and are a glory in the woods.

One trait has made this tree a favorite for shade and ornament. It has a shock of fibrous roots, and for this reason is easily transplanted. It grows rapidly in any moist, rich soil. It keeps its leaves clean and beautiful throughout the season. Washington, D. C., has its streets planted to native trees, one species lining the sides of a single street or avenue for miles. The pin oaks are superb on the thoroughfare that reaches from the Capitol to the Navy Yard. They retain the beauty of their youth because each tree has been given a chance to grow to its best estate. In spring the opening leaves and pistillate flowers are red, giving the silvery green tree-top a warm flush that cheers the passerby. In European countries this oak is a prime favorite for public and private parks.

=The Red Oak=

_Q. rubra_, Linn.

The red oak grows rapidly, like the pin oak, and is a great favorite in parks overseas, where it takes on the rich autumnal red shades that give it its name at home. Such color is unknown in native woods in England.