Acorn

“ Presently the yearling rushed them out again, then sidled down, venturing to the edge of the feeding-ground, where he began to crunch acorns again with a cautious eye on the sow and her noisy brood.
Here and there a brilliant blue-jay floated down, seized an acorn, and winged hastily to some near tree where presently he filled the woods with the noise he made in hammering the acorn into some cleft in the bark.
Gradually the sunlight on the leaves reddened; long, luminous shadows lengthened eastward. Kathleen, lying at full length, her pretty face between her hands, suddenly sneezed. ”

“ Even to this very day, in the provinces of Spain,2229 we find the acorn introduced at table in the second course: it is thought to be sweeter when roasted in the ashes. By the law of the Twelve Tables, there is a provision made that it shall be lawful for a man to gather his acorns when they have fallen upon the land of another.
The varieties of the glandiferous trees are numerous, and they are found to differ in fruit, locality, sex, and taste; the acorn of the beech having one shape, that of the quercus another, and that, again, of the holm-oak another. ”

“ Red Cloud, the acorn-planter!
Red Cloud, first man of the Nishinam!
Thy people hunger.
Far have they fared.
Hard has the way been.
Day long they sought,
High in the mountains,
Deep in the pools,
Wide 'mong the grasses,
In the bushes, and tree-tops,
Under the earth and flat stones.
Few are the acorns,
Past is the time for berries,
Fled are the fishes, the prawns and the grasshoppers,
Blown far are the grass-seeds,
Flown far are the young birds,
Old are the roots and withered.
Built are the fires for the meat.
Laid are the boughs for sleep,
Yet thy people cannot sleep. ”

“ What can be handsomer, wear better to the eye, than the color of the acorn, like the leaves on which it falls, polished or varnished. I should be at least equally pleased, if I were to find that the grass tasted sweet and nutritious. It increases the number of my friends, it diminishes the number of my foes. How easily, at this season, I could feed myself in the woods! There is mast for me too, as well as for the pigeon and the squirrels,—this Dodonean fruit. The sweet-acorn tree is famous and well known to the boys. ”

“ Occasionally, when threading the woods in the fall, you will hear a sound as if some one had broken a twig, and, looking up, see a jay pecking at an acorn, or you will see a flock of them at once about it, in the top of an oak, and hear them break it off. They then fly to a suitable limb, and placing the acorn under one foot, hammer away at it busily, making a sound like a woodpecker's tapping, looking round from time to time to see if any foe is approaching, and soon reach the meat, and nibble at it, holding up their heads to swallow while they hold the remainder very firmly with their claws. ”

“ And the Sun Man and his Sun Men Wore nor hair nor hide nor birdskin. Cloth they wore from beaten grasses Woven like our willow baskets, Willow-woven acorn baskets Women make in acorn season. (Old Man hands piece of cloth to Red Cloud.) Red Cloud (Admiring cloth.) The Sun Man was an acorn-planter, and we killed the Sun Man. We were not kind. We made a blood-debt. Blood-debts are not good. Shaman The Sun Man lied. His brothers did not come after. There is no blood-debt when there is no one to make us pay. Red Cloud He who plants acorns reaps food, and food is life. ”

“ Early in the acorn's life one of the six ovules gets the start of its neighbors and takes to itself all the nutriment. It grows too large for its chamber, and breaks the partition-walls. It grows to the measure of all the chambers, fills them, and pushes its shriveled brethren up against the shell-wall where you see them, five little starved-out things which once were possible oaks! ”

“ This tree seldom rises higher than thirty feet and branches very much,—the bark is rough, thick and of a light colour; the leaves small, deeply indented, and of a pale green; the cup which contains the acorn is fringed on the edges; the acorn itself which grows in great profusion is of an excellent flavor and has none of the roughness which most other acorns possess: they are now falling and have probably attracted the number of deer which we have seen at this place. ”

“ Right you are, Davy boy! The nut that stands at the head of the family. Few acorns are fit to be eaten, except by animals, but you see how round and perfect the family seal is, and though the acorn-cup is nothing like the chestnut-bur, or the husk of the hazel, it perhaps would be, if the green acorn itself was not so bitter that it does not need any other protection. The oak is one of the finest and most useful of all trees, and the hazel and chestnut and beech are probably very proud of belonging to the Oak family. ”

“ Red Cloud The heart of the acorn is good? First Old Woman (Nodding.) It is good food. Red Cloud When you have pounded and winnowed and washed away the bitter. Second Old Woman As thou taught'st us, Red Cloud, when the world was very young and thou wast the first man. Red Cloud It is a fat food. It makes life, and life is good. Shaman It was thou, Red Cloud, gathering the acorns and teaching the storing, who gavest life to the Nishinam in the lean years aforetime, when the tribes not of the Nishinam passed like the dew of the morning. ”

“ There is always pleasure in examining an acorn-cup,—perhaps associated with fairy banquets, where they were said to compose the table-service. Here, too, are those balls which grow as excrescences on the leaves of the oak, and which young kittens love so well to play with, rolling them over the carpet. We see mosses, likewise, growing on the banks, in as great variety as the trees of the wood. And how strange is the gradual process with which we detect objects that are right before the eyes! ”

“ Finally, acorns are sometimes stored in such fashion as to make them easy prey for marauding rodents, when with some definite foresight and a little more work such exposure could easily be largely avoided.
In his second paper (1922) , after further observations, he states [1] :
My previous surmise that the birds are more interested in the grubs contained in the acorns than in the acorn meats has not been substantiated. ”

“ The acorn becomes the sturdy oak only because Nature is contented with small results, because she can afford to wait and is never in a hurry to see the result of her operations. And because she is patient and careful in her beginnings, her works are wonderfully great and complete in their issues. Above all, they endure. Whoever breathes slowest will live the longest. ”

“ There is, I believe, a method of planting an acorn in a bottle, productive of the happiest results—for those who love small results. You only give the acorn a little water every day,—no soil of course. The poor thing will push up a thin twig of stem through the bottle neck, and in time will unfold a few real oak leaves. Men like Wentworth would always prefer the acorn to remain an acorn, but if it shews signs of growth, some of them are wise enough, take alarm early enough, to squeeze it quickly down a bottle neck before it has expanded too much to resist the passage. ”

“ His after-progress will depend on the amount of force which his nature possesses; but all this is as natural as the growth of an acorn. You do not preach to the acorn that it is its duty to become a large tree; you do not preach to the art-pupil that it is his duty to become a Holbein. You plant your acorn in favorable soil, where it can have light and air, and be sheltered from the wind; you remove the superfluous branches, you train the strength into the leading shoots. The acorn will then become as fine a tree as it has vital force to become. ”

“ The acorn is the only seed I can think of which is left by nature to take care of itself. It matures without protection, falls heavily and helplessly to the ground, to be eaten and trodden on by animals, yet the few which escape and those which are trodden under are well able to compete in the race for life. While the elm and maple seeds are drying up on the surface, the hickories and the walnuts waiting to be cracked, the acorn is at work with its coat off. It drives its tap root into the earth in spite of grass, and brush, and litter. ”

“ It might have been cold; but the frost fairies wove a soft, white snow blanket to cover it, and so it was kept warm.
If you had walked through the woods that winter, you would have said the acorn was gone, but then you could not have seen the life slumbering within the brown cover. But spring came and called to all the sleeping [103] things underground to waken and come forth. The acorn heard and tried to move, but the brown shell held it fast. Some raindrops trickled through the ground to moisten the shell, and one day the pushing life within was set free. ”

“ She is now ordained over a parish in the State of New York, but when she meets on the Temperance platform the Rev. John Chambers, or your own Gen. Carey (applause) they greet her with hisses. Theodore Parker said: "The acorn that the school-boy carries in his pocket and the squirrel stows in his cheek, has in it the possibility of an oak, able to withstand, for ages, the cold winter and the driving blast." I have seen the acorn men and women, but never the perfect oak; all are but abortions. ”

“ The acorn must produce an oak, and nothing else. The grain of wheat must always produce its kind. The offspring of man must always bear his image, and always exhibit the same fundamental characteristics, not only in his corporeal nature, but also in his mental constitution.19
But the germination of every seed depends on conditions ab extra, and all germs are modified, in their development, by geographical and climatal surroundings. The development of the acorn into a mature and perfect oak greatly depends on the exterior conditions of soil, and moisture, light, and heat. ”

“ Acorns also form an important item in the winter fare of rabbits and deer. It is true that they draw rats to the coverts, and even when the last acorn has gone it is not easy to clear the rats away completely. Whether or not there are plentiful acorns, the keeper is much indebted to the oak for food for pheasants, because they are so fond of the spangle-galls, to be found in plenty on the backs of the leaves, that they prefer them even to the maize which is freely scattered. ”

“ The process was much like that which occurs in the shedding of leaves, with, however, the very noteworthy difference that the acorn itself was still alive.
We have not, however, done with our oak twig. The acorns which it bore were only appendages to an appendage, and it now becomes the turn of the cups themselves and the whole of the long foot-stalk on which they are mounted to become detached. These are no part of the tree, and are of no use to it. They were developed in order to bear flowers and fruit; that function they have now discharged, and they must die. ”

“ It is done: the acorn is accepted as a good one. The drill is driven in and kept working for hours; then, very often, the insect goes away, despising her work. The laying of the egg does not follow on the boring. What is the object of so great and so long an effort? Can the Weevil simply be piercing the fruit to satisfy her appetite and obtain refreshment? Can the reed-like beak go down to the depths of the barrel to draw, from the likeliest spots, a few mouthfuls of sustaining drink? Can the enterprise be a matter of personal nourishment? ”

“ What do you think I should do?”
“All right, in this case, I think you should give this judgement: declare that the dumbest, weakest, absolutely worst acorn is the best. I heard that once in a sermon.” ”

“ Running round the oval body of the sea acorn are eight narrow bands, and on each of these are a number of very tiny scales, placed one above another, which keep on rising and falling again, like so many little trap-doors. ”

“ Acorn nearly round, 1⁄2 to 2/3 in. long, set in a rather deep, conspicuously scaly cup. Bark of trunk thicker, rougher, darker-colored and with the inner color orange. Rich and poor soil. Abundant east, but rare west.
Q. palústris.
13. Quércus palústris, Du Roi. (Swamp, Spanish, or Pin Oak.) Leaves oblong, deeply pinnatifid, with divergent, sharply toothed, bristle-tipped lobes and rounded notches, [Pg 157] and with both sides bright green. Acorn globular, hardly 1⁄2 in. long, cup shallow and saucer-shaped, almost sessile, in the axils of last year's leaf-scars. A handsome, medium-sized tree ”

“ Steers, will you hand me down that purple and gilt package—Now here's a fine thing. Royal Acorns—just put on the market. They claim there's the elements of most everything you want in a Royal Acorn—supplies the brain. Yes, ma'am, that's right—our oaks, strongest trees we have, grow from acorns. It says right here on the package that if you take for your dinner every night a little clear soup, a slice of rare roast beef or mutton, a couple of well-cooked vegetables, some simple pudding with cream and a toasted Royal Acorn, you build up tissue right along. ”

“ Here there were acorns in abundance and the birds were numerous. They are now greatly diminished in numbers and less clamorous, but scattering birds may be seen in the hills, always haunting the oaks. The little Californian Woodpecker resents the intrusion and may often be seen sprinting after its big cousin, with malice in every movement. I am curious to know where the birds nest and if the acorn forms any part of their food, or whether it is the tender grub which induces them to such industry. ”

“ Marsh, and his friend, Herbert Spencer, that if either of them will show that an acorn comes without an oak tree, we will abandon any position we have taken on this subject, and accept theirs, however absurdly (to our mind) it may have been taken in the past. We know that "tall oaks from little acorns grow;" but that is when man becomes the sower of seed, and knows the origin of each specific tree that is brought forth. When we talk about the squirrel, or the birds becoming the "sowers of seeds," especially the acorns, we are talking at random, and without any certain knowledge. ”