Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/83

Rh be the pecan of Texas and Illinois, or the shell-bark or mocker-nut of the Central or Eastern States, the amusement is the same. They are the best nuts the forests of North America produce, and some of them are thought to be superior in flavor to the much-esteemed English walnut.

Year after year have hundreds and thousands of bushels of the shell-barks, the hickory-nuts par excellence, been gathered in various parts of the country. Among these, few can have failed to notice the many differences they present. Some are small and nearly round; some are long, narrow, and angular; some have thick shells, and some thin ones, as any one who has cracked his fingers along with the shell can bear witness.

According to evolutionary doctrines, variability in an important feature is an indication either of a low state of development, or that the organism is in a state of advancement. Various facts show the latter to be the case with the shell-bark hickory. The first stages of the onward march must be sought far back in prehistoric times, for it boasts an ancient if not an honored lineage. Before the hairy mammoth roamed the forests of the Ohio Valley; before the soil of Louisiana was yet above the ocean's waters; before the Ohio had become tributary to the mighty Mississippi; before even the Rocky Mountain range had been elevated above the waste of waters, the ancestors of this hickory flourished in the land. But, before we study the ancient hickories, let us examine the living trees and note their peculiarities.



Were the same observers who saw the differences in the size and shape of the nuts of the white shell-bark to direct their attention to the husks of that fruit, they would find much variability there also. But these are secondary considerations with the nut-gatherers. If a