WHERE THE NUTS COME FROM
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| WHERE THE NUTS COME FROM |
Although Eastern America has two species of hazel nuts, the nuts of one being wrapped in quaintly-fringed round husks, and those of the other enclosed in husks that are extended into long tubes with fringed mouths, the shrubs are seldom cultivated, and never to the extent that they are in Europe. Cobnuts or cobs, they are called in England; or, when oblong in shape, they are known as filberts. We often see both kinds in our shops.
The hazel opens its flowers long before the broad leaves expand; the male flowers are those little catkins which children call lambs' tails; the female flower is the most modest little bloom, and we can never find it unless we look right at the tip of the bud.
Although the tree is small, it is valuable apart from its nuts. The thin twigs make baskets; thicker ones make hoops and stakes; while the bigger timber, when burnt, makes the best charcoal, which artists value when it is made up for them into crayons. The nuts themselves give splendid oil, which is used in painting pictures, and also in making costly scents. The tree itself, as well as the nuts, gives valuable oil, some of which is said to relieve toothache.
Many of the edible nuts that come pattering to the earth in Autumn fall [from] great and picturesque trees belonging to the walnut tribe. We may find in the woods of various parts of the country, as well as in the markets, the pecan (grown for its fruit in the southern states), the butternut, a host of hickory nuts, and the black walnut, with its hard, rough shell, which has been perhaps more generally planted than any other. But nearly every farm has its shagbark hickory, left to grow and scatter its thin-shelled, sweet nuts for the farmer. It can always be recognized by the long strips of bark hanging like loose shingles from their upper edges. The walnut of Europe is common in our shops, with its thin shell, and easily-extracted meat. This tree has been planted in California, and bears well there. When young, the nuts resemble green, hard young pears.
In the Old World, the walnut is an important form of food for poor people. Enough walnuts are grown there to supply quantities to manufacturers, who press out the rich oil which the nut contains. Then they sell the nut, squeezed into cakes, with the oil gone, to poor people for food, or to the farmers, who give it to their cattle.
The wood of both walnut trees is among the most valuable of all woods. From it we make beautiful pianos and cabinets and the stocks of guns. The bark and the green covering of the nut give a rich dark dye, which is used for the staining of woods that are of lighter color. The bruised leaves yield a pleasant balsam. The walnut tree reaches a height of nearly a hundred feet, and such a tree when cut down and sold for timber is worth $3000.
One of the hardest nuts to crack, yet one of the nicest to eat, is the Brazil nut, which is grown in Brazil and other parts of tropical South America, and in French Guiana. It is a surprizing growth.
With such a hard shell, one would think that it does not need much protection. But the nuts grow in clusters, twenty or more packed together inside a great hard shell. The Brazil nut is the seed of the tree, and this hard shell encloses it, as the fruit of the peach encloses the hard stone. The outer shell in which the Brazil nut grows is the color of a cocoa-nut, and quite round. When the nut is ripe it falls to the ground. The tree grows to a height of over one hundred feet, so, as we may imagine, it is dangerous to walk under these trees when the nuts begin to fall.
Peanuts, which originally came from Brazil, grow on a small plant. The nuts, which push down into the ground and ripen there, contain a great deal of oil, and are very good food.
The most valuable of all nuts is the cocoa-nut. It grew first of all along the East Indian coast and the South Sea Islands, but it seemed as if Nature had given it almost animal powers. The nuts, when ripe, fall from the tree and into the sea, and go sailing off on the tide to distant lands. If there is enough soil for the nut, and the climate is warm in the land which it eventually reaches, it takes root in the soil and grows into a tree, which scatters its nuts on the ground or into the sea. Some will root there and form more trees; others will sail away to grow in other lands. In this way shipwrecked men find food and drink and lodging in uninhabited islands. It is a life-saver in the wilds.
The cocoa-nut grows on a palm tree, which has a stem about 18 inches round, and from 60 to 90 feet high. At the end of seven years the new tree begins to bear fruit, and it goes on bearing fruit for the next seventy or eighty years. The hard shell of the nut is enclosed in a tough shell of fibre, from which the cocoa-nut matting is made. This double protection keeps out from the nut evil insects, like those which bore through the shell of the hazel.
The milk in the cocoa-nut is simply the juice of the palm tree's fruit. Other fruits, which are soft, have their juice distributed all through their system, but as the cocoa-nut grows, the kernel becomes hard and shrinks, and the milk, or juice, collects and becomes imprisoned in the centre.
Each big cocoa-nut tree gives from 80 to 200 nuts in the course of a year. The dried leaves of the tree, which are from 10 to 15 inches long, make thatch for the roofs of huts; the small leaves and fibres make screens, mats, baskets, and so forth.
There is a big trade in cocoa-nuts, for they yield a valuable oil, which can be used in lamps, or for ointment, or even as medicine. It is valuable, too, for making soap which can be used at sea. Ordinary soap will not lather in salt water, but soap made from cocoa-nut oil will. From seven or eight cocoa-nuts about a quart of oil can be produced. The shell of the cocoa-nut can be carved and polished.
The large chestnuts which are often used for a sugary confection and are sold raw or roasted, in our cities, come from the south of Europe. They grow in spiny husks, three nuts to a husk, like the common horse-chestnut, upon a fine handsome tree. Poor people in Europe roast the chestnut, or boil it like potatoes, and grind it for flour, to make into bread. Our own chestnuts are smaller, especially the chinquapins, but quite as sweet. Chestnut wood is easily split, has a handsome grain, and is used for railroad-ties, the interior of houses, furniture and the like.
The sweet almonds that we eat have been brought into existence by the care of men. At one time all almonds were bitter and poisonous. They grew first in Africa, but trees have been taken to Italy and other warm countries. The almond is a relative of the peach tree, but, instead of enclosing its nut in fruit, it grows a husk, which gradually shrivels and opens up as the nut becomes ripe. The bitter almond gives excellent oil, and its wood