Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/84

72 nut falls to the ground with the husk intact, the nutter gives it a kick with his boot-heel, or a blow with his stick, and separates the husk into its component parts. For this outer covering divides readily along the sutures and falls into four pieces. Sometimes the four form a nearly perfect ball; sometimes they are long and taper to a point; occasionally, three pieces will serve the purpose of four, but they are all dark green or brown on the outside, white with streaks or veins of brown inside, and they vary from a quarter to half an inch in thickness.

Yet another thing will the nutters notice, and that to their disappointment and disgust. This is the number of nuts having neatly cut, round holes in the shell. Out of these there will often be seen protruding the white body of a well-fed worm, which has been growing in size and strength since the egg hatched in the young nut. The grub grew with the growth of its house; it found an abundant store of nutriment, and it attains a size which makes it a matter of wonder how it manages to escape from the neat little round hole it has cut in the thin white shell.

Such is the fruit of the white shell-bark. The tree which produces it is equally interesting. The common name of shell-bark or shag-bark tells at once its most remarkable characteristic, and one by means of which it is most easily and readily recognized. The bark, instead of being securely attached to the trunk as in most trees, breaks loose from it and hangs in strips, fastened sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the upper and at other times at the lower end. The whole trunk thus presents a shaggy, rough appearance, and in some cases resembles the ragged ends of an ill-laid and worn-out thatch. This feature is only to be observed in trees of more than ten years of age, younger ones showing indications of what is to come.

It is a majestic tree, eighty or ninety feet in height, straight and without a branch for sometimes sixty feet, and then spreading out its bushy head. In the spring the young leaves make a very rapid growth, attaining a length of twenty inches in a short time. These leaves are divided into five leaflets, four being in two opposite pairs, and the fifth placed at the end. Each leaflet tapers to a sharp point and has saw-like teeth on the edges. The flowers are small, green, and form long, pendent catkins, arranged in bunches of threes, with the fertile or pistillate flowers at the base. The pollen is produced in immense quantities, and conveyed from the stamens to the pistils through the agency of the wind. The species is widely distributed over the country, ranging from the St. Lawrence Valley and Southeast Minnesota on the north, to Florida and Texas on the south. This extensive dispersion is perhaps one reason for the variability the nut presents, as under varied conditions it assumes diverse forms.

One of the nearest relatives of the white shell-bark is the thick shell-bark. In this species the nut is very large, has an extremely thick husk and shell, and a small but sweet kernel. The husk