Beechnut

“ BEECHNUT’S ADVICE.
“Nonsense, Beechnut,” said Phonny, “you are only making fun. If I were to let him go off into the woods, he never would come back again.”
“Why, do you suppose,” said Beechnut, “that he would rather be running about in the woods than to live in that trap?”
[Pg 90]
“Yes,” said Phonny.
“Then,” said Beechnut, “you must make him a beautiful cage, and have it so convenient and comfortable for him, that he shall like it better than he does the woods. That would not be difficult, one would suppose, because he has nothing but holes in the ground and old hollow logs in the woods.” ”

“ Size is the most important characteristic in the beechnut, for all are thin shelled and practically all are well flavored. If we had a beechnut the size of a chestnut we should have a most valuable addition to our nuts. The points awarded for size have therefore been on the basis that eventually we would get a beechnut the size of a chestnut, although we are very far from that now. Forty points are allowed for size and it is figured that eventually we will get a beechnut 4 grams in weight which is the weight of a medium size chestnut. ”

“ Beechnuts make excellent food for poultry and certain kinds of livestock. To convert the crop into cash is largely a matter of using the land under the trees for the right sort of grazing. In European countries beechnuts are highly valued as a source of salad oil. Mr. Bixby of this association is taking steps to procure trees bearing as large sized nuts as possible with a view to subsequent breeding. ”

“ Some writers tell us that the flavor is sweet or slightly bitter. It was the decidedly bitter kind that I found lying temptingly clean and white under the tree. The thin outer husk of the pignut is not much larger than the nut. It is broader at the top than at the stem, where it narrows almost to a point. The husk does not open as freely as that of the other hickory-nuts. It is inclined to cling to the nut; in some cases it only partially opens and drops with the nut.
Beechnut
One of the sweetest and most delicately flavored of our native nuts is the little, triangular beechnut. ”

“ The American beechnut (Fagus atropunicea, Sudworth) naturally belongs to this list, but as it is probably not under cultivation as a nut tree at any place in the United States, it will not be discussed at this time.
The principal foreign species which have been tried in the Northeastern States are: The European and Japanese chestnuts (Castanea sativa and C. japonica) ; the Persian (English) walnut (Juglans regia) ; the Japanese walnuts (J. Sieboldiana; J. cordiformis and J. mandshurica) ; the European hazels (Corylus avellana and C. tubulosa) . ”

“ The beechnut is also one of the principal winter foods of the squirrel and other animals which store their food for winter use. In the cutting of the forests in the winter often large stores of beechnuts are found stored away by squirrels and birds. ”

“ No food is better for turkeys and hogs than are beechnuts. A bushel of beechnuts that can be used in this way replace at least a bushel of corn. The difference in cost of production should make beechnuts worth several times as much as corn.
In Europe a valuable oil used as a drug and for salads is expressed from beechnuts. Possibly individual trees could be found somewhere in Michigan which produce nuts large enough, good enough, and in quantity enough to justify their recognition and propagation as named varieties. ”

“ The oak whose acorns probably made the pig what he is, is almost neglected in America; yet for ages the Indians of the Pacific coast have made their bread from acorns of two species of oak, one of which is now gathered by the farmers of California, put into their barns and [Pg 34] bought and sold as stock food. The beechnut and the hickory nut are rich and much prized swine food.
Legumes, of which there are many species, can be grown between nut-yielding trees to maintain the fertility of the soil through the nitrogen gathering nodules upon their roots. ”

“ Chestnuts, beechnuts and acorns require more care when they are to be stored, for their viability is very sensitive to dryness. I have found that these soft-shelled species of nuts should be treated in a different manner than the walnut and hickory types of seeds if we are to get the most out of their germination. Since chestnuts are very prone to molding or rotting, [Pg 92] the best way to maintain their viability and freshness over winter is to stratify them in a can or box between layers of a peat moss. ”

“ In the New England and Canada woods beechnuts were their best and most abundant food, farther north, cranberries and huckleberries. After everything was cleaned up in the north and winter was coming on, they went south for rice, corn, acorns, haws, wild grapes, crab-apples, sparkle-berries, etc. They seemed to require more than half of the continent for [162] feeding-grounds, moving from one table to another, field to field, forest to forest, finding something ripe and wholesome all the year round. ”

“ It is inconceivable however, that a tree can vary in every particular except in the fruit and it is believed that it only requires sufficient searching to find large fruited varieties. There are difficulties, however, in the way of finding unusual beeches which do not occur with walnuts, chestnuts and hickories, which are trees where the nuts have such merit that they are usually spared even if in the middle of a cultivated field, while the beech is usually a forest tree. A nut contest brings hundreds and thousands of walnuts and hickories but only very few beechnuts. ”

“ The chances are strong that when October ripens the nuts, nobody has any difficulty in locating beech trees, if there are any in the vicinity. Usually, in the wild woods, they grow in large groups of various sizes; the big trees sheltering the little ones until they are strong enough to live in the full sunlight. Do boys and girls find the beeches by instinct just as the mice, the blue jays, the squirrels, and the foraging hogs do?
Do you know why it takes so much longer to gather a pint of beechnuts than the same amount of hazel-nuts? ”

“ The wild nuts gathered in this country for sale or home use in the North are chestnuts, hickory nuts, black walnuts, butternut, hazel-nut, beechnut; in the South, the pecan and the chinquapin; in the far West, the pine nut. The least known of these in eastern markets are the pine nuts, which form a very staple article of food for many tribes of Indians in the Great Basin. John Muir says that there are tens of thousands of acres covered with nut pines. An industrious Indian family can gather fifty or sixty bushels in a month if the snow does not catch them. ”

“ All sorts of odd nooks and crannies serve the Redheads for storehouses—knot-holes, pockets under patches of raised bark, cracks between shingles and fences, and even railroad ties. Sometimes, instead of nuts, grasshoppers and other eatables are put away in storage. The wise birds at times make real caches, concealing their stores by hammering down pieces of wood or bark over them.
Beechnuts are such a large part of the fall and winter food of the Redheads in some localities, that, like the gray squirrels, the birds are common in good beechnut winters and absent in others. ”

“ They have grown plump on wild seeds and grasshoppers, and now they make daily excursions to the woods for beechnuts, which they swallow whole. As beechnuts are plentiful this year, nut-fed turkeys should be a feature of the Thanksgiving markets, though no one seems to have made a classification of this kind. Beechnut bacon is sometimes advertised—a fact that causes wonder among the farmers, for in the old days when they dressed their hogs for market the buyers were expert in picking out hogs that had been allowed to eat nuts. ”

“ The acorn, in all countries, is comparatively little armed with protective coverings: it has only a thin shell, and is guarded from depredations mainly by its slightly bitter taste, as well as by its cup, or saucer, which acts as a barrier against the attacks of insects who try to lay their eggs at its tender base. Beechnuts have a rather more leathery shell, and are externally protected by their prickly husk, which makes them difficult for the delicate noses of squirrels to tackle as they grow upon their native boughs. ”

“ Beech (Fagus) , a genus containing about sixteen species. The trees have smooth, silver-grey trunks, egg-shaped leaves like leather, and blossoms at the base of the leaves. The beechnuts are three-cornered; they grow in couples in a wooden capsule. The beech trees attain a height of from sixty to ninety feet, and blossom in April and May. The American Beech is the only North American species. ”

“ The thorn apple trees, with their armor of bayonet-like spikes, were filled with scarlet apples, mellow and rich as a persimmon after the frost has ripened it, while over wayside saplings trailed long vines hung thick with little fox grapes doubly tasty because Jack Frost had nipped them. Then too there were beechnuts rattling down out of their yellowing leaves—all these good things to be had for the taking; no wonder the partridges grew each day a trifle more plump that autumn. ”

“ It is well known that the red-head is very fond of beechnuts. Every other year we expect a full crop of nuts, and close observation shows that the red-heads come to the North in much larger numbers and stay much later on these years of plenty than on the years of scanty crops. ”

“ In the case of the beechnuts, what is it that lies dormant in the substance of the nuts and becomes alive, under the influence of the warmth and moisture of spring, and puts out a radicle that pierces the dry leaves like an awl? ”

“ Their absence was in no way governed by the severity of the winters, but entirely dependent upon the absence of the usual supply of beechnuts. While the greater portion of nuts fall to the ground and are buried beneath the snow far beyond the reach of the woodpeckers, yet enough remain on the trees all winter to furnish abundant subsistence for those species which feed on them. ”

“ If you were to count your beechnuts, you would find it takes many more of them by count to make a pint than of the round nuts, because of their triangular shape. They fit so snugly that your pint measure of beechnuts is almost solid nuts. They are about the sweetest of the wild nuts. They are very rich in fat too, and in olden times an oil for table use was made from beechnuts. Olive oil takes its place now and costs less. There is a market for all the beechnuts you can gather. Dealers in tree seeds often have difficulty in filling orders. ”

“ At length they get through, and as they start to fly away many, if not all, will drop something. I have found these to be acorns, walnuts, hickory nuts, buckeyes, sycamore balls, sticks, eggshells, pebbles, etc. As a crow leaves an oak he will pluck an acorn, which he may carry five miles and light on a beech tree where something else will attract his attention, when he will drop the acorn and maybe pluck a pod of beechnuts and fly away somewhere else."—Prof. ”

“ For winter homes they dig burrows two or three feet deep, in the lower parts of which they excavate oval chambers and fill them with fine grass and other soft material to make a warm nest. Other chambers opening from these burrows serve as store-rooms for berries, seeds, and nuts of various kinds, among which beechnuts are a favorite. ”

“ Probably a campaign of education among foresters might be more productive of results than among farmers, at least it should supplement it. The search for improved beechnuts evidently has more different kinds of difficulties than the search for any other nut and considerable thought on the matter leads me to suggest that a committee be appointed to study the nut and to seek large fruited specimens especially to look into methods for getting them and report to the association a year hence, said committee to finance itself. ”

“ In confinement they eat beechnuts, acorns, and other kinds of nuts, if broken for them. In villages where they are not molested they become very tame, freely approach the barnyards to feed with the poultry, and will even come at the call of their friends and pick up food thrown to them. This is especially noticeable in Florida, where the representatives of the small race of the species found there are very numerous and remarkably confiding. ”

“ The tables for determining the number of points to be awarded for a given value of any characteristic are likely to vary for each species. Inasmuch as there are fourteen species of hickories exclusive of the pecan that have to be considered and apparently even more species of walnuts not to mention beechnuts, chestnuts and hazels, one might think that nearly 100 tables would be required. ”

“ European engineers employ it to a considerable extent in construction, but it is seldom used in America save for indoor finish, furniture, handles, flooring, and the like. The small edible nuts, known as beech-mast, are pressed abroad for a fixed oil, resembling and used in place of that from the olive. They are seldom gathered in this country, but are devoured by animals. Beech-trees have smooth, light-colored bark, and are very attractive in their winter appearance. They may be recognized earlier in the season by their small prickly burrs, each containing two triangular, sharp-edged nuts. ”