Birds and Nature Vol. 11 No. 3 [March 1902]

All the other members of the Juglandaceæ are common throughout the United States, either growing wild or under cultivation. The wood of the butternut or white walnut and that of the black walnut is extensively used in cabinet making, furniture making and interior finish, particularly the wood of the black walnut. The earlier craze for black walnut furniture threatened to exterminate the plant, but fortunately (for the walnut tree) the fashion is waning. The wood is heavy, dark brown in color, of medium hardness, easily worked and readily polished, though it does not take the glossy polish of the harder woods, as ebony. Hickory wood is very hard, tough and durable, but it is not suitable for cabinet making, etc., because it warps too much. It is an excellent wood for making handles for tools of all descriptions, oxen yokes, hoops, walking sticks, whiffletrees, wagon stocks, etc. Its tensile strength is enormous, being said to be equal to that of wrought iron.

The seeds (kernels) of the English walnut, butternut, black walnut and shagbark hickory are edible and greatly relished, while those of the bitter and pignut hickories are not edible. Eating too many of the kernels causes distressing dyspeptic symptoms because of the large amount of oil which they contain. Salting the kernels before eating or taking a little salt with them is said to lessen these disturbances. The oil of these nuts is expressed and used as a salad oil and by artists in mixing pigments. The half-grown green fruits of the walnuts are pickled with spices and eaten, but as such relishes have never come into great favor. They are too severe in their action on the intestinal tract, due to the tannin, acids and coloring substances present. The hulls of these nuts are used in dyeing cloth; also the bark of the butternut and black walnut. The leaves and hull of the English walnut and the inner bark of the roots of the butternut are still quite extensively used medicinally. A decoction of the leaves is said to cure gout, scrofula and rickets. The hulls are recommended in gout and eruptive skin diseases. Fresh leaves are applied as a fomentation to carbuncles. The extract is used as a gargle, wash for ulcerous eruptions and taken internally in tubercular meningitis. The juice of the green hull has been extensively employed as a popular remedy to remove warts, as an external application for skin diseases, and internally as a stomachic and worm remedy. The medicinal virtues of these plants are, however, apparently limited and unreliable.

The nut so-called of the English walnut, black walnut, butternut and hickory nut consists of the kernel (seed) and the inner layer (endocarp) of the fruit coat (pericarp). The endocarp, which is ordinarily designated as the shell, is very hard and splits more or less easily into two equal parts. The shell of the English walnut is comparatively thin and quite easily removed from the kernel. The shell of black walnut and butternut is very rough, very dark in color, thick, and not so easily removed from the seed or kernel. The hickory shell is quite difficult to remove. The kernels are eaten direct or added to cake, cake frosting, and other pastry, or encased by sugar and chocolate by the candy maker. The halves of the shell of the English walnut figure conspicuously in the well known “shell game” of the gambler who seems to be the central figure at county fairs and many circuses.

As already stated, the trees belonging to the butternut or hickory family grow quite slowly, and do not attain their full growth for many years. In our latitude the nuts are planted in the fall when they begin to germinate late the following spring. In order to give the trees free growth they should be planted at least thirty feet apart. They begin to bear fruit at about the tenth year, few nuts at first, but gradually more and more each year, and they continue to bear for many years. The leaves, buds and green fruits have a resinous, characteristic aromatic odor, recalling the lemon. All who have ever handled leaves, green bark and fruit will remember that the juice colors the skin a dark brown which is very difficult to remove.

The fruit of the black walnut and butternut when ripe is gathered, the hulls removed by stamping with mauls, the nuts dried for a week in the sun and then stored for use. The hull of the English walnut and the hickory nut is quite easily removed.

    Albert Schneider.

AWAKENING

My heart is glad,
And hopes deemed dead now wake to life again.
This morn I heard,
Ere I to conscious thought returnéd had,
The spring song of the sparrows in the rain.

    – M. Townshend Maltby.