Kola nut

“ Kola can scarcely be called a tea, because, as a drink, it is produced from a nut, instead of a leaf, but it is put here because it contains the alkaloid Theine. Its botanical name is Sterculia acuminata, and it is a native of tropical West Africa, although now introduced into the West Indies and Brazils. ”

“ There are many kinds of nuts to be found in their domain, but the nut of the oil palm is a great favorite. They sometimes eat the kola nut, but they are not partial to it. Several kinds of small fruits and berries also form part of their diet. They eat the stalks of some plants, the tender buds of others, and the tendrils of certain vines. ”

“ On long marches it is worth while trying to cultivate a taste for Kola nuts: they are marvellously refreshing and stimulating, and the clean, bitter flavour is rather delightful once one is accustomed to it. ”

“ Chocolate, like tea and coffee, 127 depends for its effect on an extremely powerful drug, theine or caffeine, of which it contains minute proportions. There are very few other plants known which possess this powerful substance. Amongst these is the Kola nut, which is everywhere regularly employed in West Africa. On the way up to the barracks at Freetown, Sierra Leone, natives were always to be seen seated by the roadside ”

“ In the forests to the north of Kumassi large wild kola trees are found, and the nuts are collected by the natives inhabiting the villages in the vicinity, where they are sold at from 6d. to 9d. a hundred. In other places the trees are planted, commonly on the outskirts of villages, especially in Akim and Kwahu.
Kola nuts are used in tropical Africa in the same manner as betel nuts are in Asia. Their taste is somewhat bitter, and the mastication of fresh nuts seems to increase the flow of saliva. ”

“ Into these unquestionably deadly weapons they pour two or three handfuls of powder, and then fire them off in the road to test them. The test frequently leaves nothing remaining but a fragment of barrel and stock, and the practice is one that is rather startling to strangers who may happen to be passing by. The Kola nuts (Sterculia acuminata) are eaten by the natives habitually, as sailors chew tobacco. They are said to be particularly useful to travellers, as they prevent all sensations of hunger, thirst, or weariness. ”

“ It grows in such abundance on the tree, that when the nuts are ripe, the whole crown of the koola tree appears to be a single mass of fruit. It is round, about as large as a cherry, and the shell is so hard that it has to be broken between two stones. Thirty of these nuts are considered sufficient for a meal, even for a native African, and, as a general rule, the trees are so plentiful that the natives do not trouble themselves about carrying food in the nut season. ”

“ We split open the nut, but, to our disgust, found the kernel dry and uneatable.
“Hullo,” cried Fritz, “I always thought a cocoa-nut was full of delicious sweet liquid, like almond milk.”
“So it is,” I replied, “when young and fresh, but as it ripens the milk becomes congealed, and in course of time is solidified into a kernel. This kernel then dries as you see here, but when the nut falls on favourable soil, the germ within the kernel swells until it bursts through the shell, and, taking root, springs up a new tree.” ”

“ Such nuts as pecans, hickory nuts, and walnuts transfer large amounts of potassium from the tree itself into the shucks or hulls. The kernels of such nuts are high in nitrogen, phosphorus, and magnesium as well as in oil, which is one of the most concentrated food materials and has the highest calorie value. Nitrogen reserves in the trees are readily and rather quickly replaced if adequate amounts are applied, as this element is not fixed by the soil. ”

“ In this region, also ground acorns are made into bread with cereal flours and in this form is a common food. The hazel or filbert nut is also seen in the form of flour on the shores of the Black Sea. Races living in the tropics have utilized the many varieties of nuts indigenous to tropical climes such as the coconut, Brazil nuts, Java almond, Paradise nut, candle nut and African cream nut. In the Orient, the lichi, ginko and water chestnut, and in Italy and India the varieties of the pine nut are used to considerable extent. ”

“ When the nut is very old, the kernel of itself turns to oil, which is often used to fry with, but mostly for burning in lamps. The outer end of the nuts may be applied to the purposes of flax, and of it the natives make a kind of linen, and it is also manufactured into ropes and cables, which are sold in most parts of America and the West Indies. The shell of this nut makes very pretty drinking cups, and it also burns well, making a fierce hot fire. Thus the cocoa-tree affords meat, drink, oil, clothing, houses, firing, and rigging for ships. ”

“ It comes forth white as ivory, about the same shape and size as the brown old nuts that come by ship to England, but much younger and more brittle, for only the smallest of the old nuts, which are not wanted in the islands for copra-making, are generally exported. A large knife is used to crack the top of the nut all round, like an egg-shell, and the drink is ready, a draught of pure water, slightly sweet and just a little aerated, if the nut has been plucked at the right stage. ”

“ When the fruits reach us, the albumen has hardened and become somewhat tough and indigestible. This nut is one of the sources of wealth—in some cases, perhaps, the only one—of the coral islands of Oceania and some other tropical regions. With the top in the sun and its roots bathed by the sea-waters—its favorite station—the cocoa-tree (Cocos nucifera) continues in good condition to the age of seven or eight hundred years. The dry nut, called copra, is marketed by the thousand tons every year, to be employed in various uses for which fats are ”

“ One mistake we must not make is not to be too sure of the value of a nut because it is large, thin-shelled and has a fine flavor but is a poor cropper. The nut that produces a very heavy crop is the valuable nut. Thus McAllister hican and the Stabler black are worthless because of their extremely thin crop.
Another nut that looks large and excellent on the tree is the Ohio black walnut, whose huge dirty hull and small nut condemns it. I like thin-hulled nuts that come out clean. ”

“ Any number of these are strung at pleasure upon the long elastic fibre that traverses the branches of the cocoa-nut tree. Some of these tapers are eight or ten feet in length; but being perfectly flexible, one end is held in a coil, while the other is lighted. The nut burns with a fitful bluish flame, and the oil that it contains is exhausted in about ten minutes. As one burns down, the next becomes ignited, and the ashes of the former are knocked into a cocoa-nut shell kept for the purpose. ”

“ In many parts of Germany the peasants literally subsist on Walnuts for several months together; and a young farmer before he marries has to own a certain number of flourishing Walnut trees.
The bark or yellow skin which clothes the inner nut is a notable remedy for colic, being given when dried and powdered, in a dose of thirty or forty grains mixed with some carminative water; and the same powder will help to expel worms. ”

“ The Fruit, which is least esteemd, is also in the least plenty. It is a nut about as big as a childs head coverd like a cocoa nut with a fibrous coat, under which are 3 kernels which must be eat before they are ripe, otherwise they become to [o] hard to chew; in their proper state they resemble a good deal in taste the kernel of an unripe Cocoa nut and like them probably afford but a washy nutriment. ”

“ It has a thin hull which you can pop off by merely pressing your thumb against it after it is thoroughly dry, coming off very clean leaving a good looking nut. The kernel is very light straw-colored and you can generally get them out in good pieces, about one-quarter of the whole kernel. Above all it matures very early, about the middle of September or sooner, and this is the deciding factor for any nut, because, no matter how well It cracks, how prolific it may be, or hardy, if you do not get a ripe nut you have nothing for here in the north. ”

“ These nuts are relatively small. The cracker doesn't care how small they are, he wants a nut that handles well in the cracker, a nut that is the shape of a football. A miniature football is an ideal cracking type of nut. The cracking docks come together from the ends. We cannot use a round nut. About two-thirds of these good nuts which yielded over 50 per cent kernel were so round that the machinery in cracking would not place the docks on the ends, but they were apt to hit anyplace. So they had to be discounted.
It is quite a job to evaluate these nuts. ”

“ At this stage there is very little flesh in the nut, but a large supply of cool, sweet milk, which makes a very delicious drink. If you want a coco-nut, you just climb up a tree and take one. The owner of the tree will not mind, and he would be neither surprised nor angry if you were even to go and ask him for the loan of a knife wherewith to cut down his own coco-nuts. When the fruit is ripe, the woody mass changes to a tangle of brown fibres, that are stripped off to make coco-nut matting and other articles, and the kernel ripens into the nut as we know it in the English market. ”

“ As would be expected the samples of the same variety from different localities show variation in weight per nut and in total per cent kernel. For example, in 12 samples of the variety Ohio the weight per nut varies from 14.8 grams to 18.7 and the per cent kernel from 16.6 to 32.9. Twenty-one tests of Thomas show variations in single nut weight from 16.7 to 25.0 grams and in per cent kernel from 19.0 to 30.0. In general the samples grown in the north were made up of smaller nuts with less per cent kernel, indicating that the varieties were not suited to that latitude. ”

“ I have now, experiments underway at New Haven, on the biological value of the filbert, English walnut, pine nut, almond, and pecan. While these tests are yet incompleted, it can at least be said that to date there is no evidence that the proteins of these [Pg 86] nuts are in any way less satisfactory than those of the peanut or Brazil nut that have been thoroughly tested out.
As to the vitamine content, abundant quantities of water soluble vitamine have been found in the peanut and the coconut. Experiments that we have in progress as well as a series conducted here at Battle Creek under Dr. ”

“ That the IXL and the Nonpareil and other almonds are not considered sufficiently good for such men as Lowney to use in the manufacture of their almond candies was a surprise to me. And the reason? In the first place the skin of the kernel itself is too thick, the nut is too brittle and it has not the flavor of the imported nut. I was shocked the other day to read from cover to cover a bulletin on the subject of Almonds, and to find that not one word was said of flavor. ”

“ I realize, of course, that farther south, where hardiness is not so essential a quality, other trees may be just as satisfactory. I might also mention that the size and cracking qualities of the Weschcke variety are also commendable. The quality of the kernel, which is practically 50% of the total weight of the nut, is praised by all who have tasted it. ”

“ Take a pint of nut, or poppy oil, put it into a large earthen vessel; let it boil slowly over a moderate fire; add by degrees two ounces of white lead, and stir it continually, till the whole is dissolved. Prepare a pint of the copal-oil varnish heated in a separate vessel; pour this gradually into the hot oil, and stir them together till all the spirit of turpentine is dissipated; let it stand till cold, when it will be fit for use.
It is obvious that, as this is a compound of the copal-varnish with the least exceptionable of the drying oils, it will partake of the properties of each. ”

“ President Morris: We have got to get away from the idea that we are going to find the best hickory nut or the best walnut or the best nut of any kind in the largest nut. Nature spreads out just so much material in the way of flavor and good quality of a nut, and if it is in a large nut, those good qualities are spread out thin; if it is in a small nut, they are concentrated. ”

“ It grafts easily, grows rapidly and bears a fine nut.
A top-worked tree of Colby withstood -25 degrees without injury and is one of the most vigorous trees I have.
Fifteen seedlings from Crath Mayette and Crath Franquette seeds from the late G. H. Corsan, of Toronto, Canada, are developing into very fine trees, but are not yet bearing.
One of the first varieties planted, Broadview, grew rapidly and produced nuts after two mild winters, but the several trees of this variety killed to the ground after the -25 degrees of last winter. ”

“ All but one of our most important nuts—almonds, filberts, hickory nuts, pecans, and walnuts—are oily nuts; and well filled kernels contain from 50 to 75 percent or more of oil, depending upon the species. Chestnuts are starchy nuts and contain less than one percent of oil. The relationship between the degree of filling and the composition of the kernel in oily nuts is outstanding, in that the better filled nuts have a higher content of oil and a lower content of protein, carbohydrates, water, and undetermined constituents than do poorly filled nuts. ”