What memories of chestnutting parties, of fingers stained with the dye of walnut hulls, and of joyous tramps afield in the very heart of the year, come to many of us when we think of the nuts of familiar knowledge! Hickory-nuts and butternuts, too, perhaps hazelnuts and even beechnuts all these American boys and girls of the real country know. In the far South, and, indeed, reaching well up into the Middle West, the pecan holds sway, and a majestic sway at that, for its size makes it the fellow of the great trees of the forest, worthy to be compared with the chestnut, the walnut, and the hickory.

But it has usually been of nuts to eat that we have thought, and the chance for palatable food has, just as with some of the best of the so-called “fruit” trees all trees bear fruit! partially closed our eyes to the interest and beauty of some of these nut-bearers.

My own tree acquaintance has proceeded none too rapidly, and I have been and am yet as fond of the toothsome nuts as any one can be who is not a devotee of the new fad that attempts to make human squirrels of us all by a nearly exclusive nut diet. I think that my regard for a nut tree as something else than a source of things to eat began when I came, one hot summer day, under the shade of the great walnut at Paxtang. Huge was its trunk and wide the spread of its branches, while the richness of its foliage held at bay the strongest rays of the great luminary. How could I help admiring the venerable yet lusty old tree, conferring a present benefit, giving an instant and restful impression of strength, solidity, and elegance, while promising as well, as its rounded green clusters hung far above my head, a great crop of delicious nut-fruit when the summer’s sun it was so fully absorbing should have done its perfect work!

Alas for the great black walnut of Paxtang! It went the way of many another tree monarch whose beauty and living usefulness were no defense against sordid vandalism. In the course of time a suburb was laid out, including along its principal street, and certainly as its principal natural ornament, this massive tree, around which the Indians who roamed the “great vale of Pennsylvania” had probably gathered in council. The sixty-foot “lot,” the front of which the tree graced, fell to the ownership of a man who, erecting a house under its beneficent protection, soon complained of its shade. Then came a lumber prospector, who saw only furniture in the still flourishing old black walnut. His offer of forty dollars for the tree was eagerly accepted by the Philistine who had the title to the land, and although there were not wanting such remonstrances as almost came to a breaking of the peace, the grand walnut ended its hundreds of years of life to become mere lumber for its destroyers! The real estate man who sold the land greatly admired the tree himself, realizing also its great value to the suburb, and had never for one moment dreamed that the potential vandal who bought the tree-graced parcel of ground would not respect the inherent rights of all his neighbors. He told me of the loss with tears in his eyes and rage in his language; and I have never looked since at the fellow who did the deed without reprobation. More than that, he has proven a theory I hold that no really good man would do such a thing after he had been shown the wrong of it by showing himself as dishonest in business as he was disregardful of the rights of the tree and of his neighbors.

The black walnut is a grand tree from any point of view, even though it so fully absorbs all water and fertility as to check other growth under its great reach of branches. The lines it presents to the winter sky are as rugged as those of the oak, but there is a great difference. And this ruggedness is held far into the spring, for the black walnut makes no slightest apparent effort at growth until all the other trees are greening the countryside. Then with a rush come the luxuriant and tropical compound leaves, soon attaining their full dignity, and adding to it also a smooth polish on the upper surface. The walnut’s flowers I have missed seeing, I am sorry to say, while registering a mental promise not to permit another season to pass without having that pleasure.

Late in the year the foliage has become scanty, and the nut-clusters hang fascinatingly clear, far above one’s head, to tempt the climb and the club. The black walnut is a tree that needs our care; for furniture fashion long used its close-grained, heavy, handsome wood as cruelly as the milliners did the herons of Florida from which were torn the “aigrets,” now happily “out of style.” Though walnut furniture is no longer the most popular, the deadly work has been done, for the most part, and but few of these wide-spread old forest monarchs yet remain. Scientific forestry is now providing, in many plantings, and in many places, another “crop” of walnut timber, grown to order, and using waste land. It is to such really beneficent, though entirely commercial work, that we must look for the future of many of our best trees.

The butternut, or white walnut, has never seemed so interesting to me, nor its fruit so palatable, probably because I have seen less of it. The so-called “English” walnut, which is really the Persian walnut, is not hardy in the eastern part of the United States, and, while a tree of vast commercial importance in the far West, does not come much into the view of a lover of the purely American trees.

Of the American sweet chestnut as a delightful nut-fruit I need say nothing more than that it fully holds its place against “foreign intervention” from the East; even though these European and Japanese chestnuts with their California-bred progeny give us fruit that is much larger, and borne on trees of very graceful habit. No one with discrimination will for a moment hesitate, after eating a nut of both, to cheerfully choose the American native as best worth his commendation, though he may come to understand the food value, after cooking, of the chestnuts used so freely in parts of Europe.

As a forest tree, however, our American sweet chestnut has a place of its own. Naturally spreading in habit when growing where there is room to expand, it easily accommodates itself to the more cramped conditions of our great woodlands, and shoots upward to light and air, making rapidly a clean and sturdy stem. What a beautiful and stately tree it is! And when, late in the spring, or indeed right on the threshold of summer, its blooming time comes, it stands out distinctly, having then few rivals in the eye of the tree-lover. The locust and the tulip are just about done with their floral offering upon the altar of the year when the long creamy catkins of the sweet chestnut spring out from the fully perfected dark green leaf-clusters. Peculiarly graceful are these great bloom heads, high in the air, and standing nearly erect, instead of hanging down as do the catkins of the poplars and the birches. The odor of the chestnut flower is heavy, and is best appreciated far above in the great tree, where it may mingle with the warm air of June, already bearing a hundred sweet scents.

There stands bright in my remembrance one golden June day when I came through a gateway into a wonderful American garden of purely native plants maintained near Philadelphia, the rock-bound drive guarded by two clumps of tall chestnuts, one on either side, and both in full glory of bloom. There could not have been a more beautiful, natural, or dignified entrance; and it was just as beautiful in the early fall, when the deep green of the oblong-toothed leaves had changed to clear and glowing yellow, while the flowers had left their perfect work in the swelling and prickly green burs which hid nuts of a brown as rich as the flesh was sweet.

Did you, gentle reader, ever saunter through a chestnut grove in the later fall, when the yellow had been browned by the frosts which brought to the ground alike leaves and remaining burs? There is something especially pleasant in the warmth of color and the crackle of sound on the forest floor, as one really shuffles through chestnut leaves in the bracing November air, stooping now and then for a nut perchance remaining in the warm and velvety corner of an opened bur.

Here in Pennsylvania, and south of Mason and Dixon’s line, there grows a delightful small tree, brother to the chestnut, bearing especially sweet little nuts which we know as chinquapins. They are darker brown, and the flesh is very white, and rich in flavor. I could wish that the chinquapin, as well as the chestnut, was included among the trees that enlightened Americans would plant along roadsides and lanes, with other fruit trees; the specific secondary purpose, after the primary enjoyment of form, foliage and flower, being to let the future passer-by eat freely of that fruit provided by the Creator for food and pleasure, and costing no more trouble or expense than the purely ornamental trees more frequently planted.

Both chestnut and chinquapin are beautiful ornamental trees; and some of the newer chestnut hybrids, of parentage between the American and the European species, are as graceful as the most highly petted lawn trees of the nurserymen. Indeed, the very same claim may be made for a score or more of the standard fruit trees, alike beautiful in limb tracery, in bloom, and in the seed-coverings that we are glad to eat; and some time we shall be ashamed not to plant the fruit trees in public places, for the pleasure and the refreshing of all who care.

One of the commonest nut trees, and certainly one of the most pleasing, is the hickory. There are hickories and hickories, and some are shellbarks, while others are bitternuts or pignuts. The form most familiar to the Eastern States is the shagbark hickory, and its characteristic upright trees, tall and finely shaped, never wide-spreading as is the chestnut under the encouragement of plenty of room and food, are admirable from any standpoint. There is a lusty old shagbark in Wetzel’s Swamp that has given me many a pleasant quarter-hour, as I have stood at attention before its symmetrical stem, hung with slabs of brown bark that seem always just ready to separate from the trunk.

The aspect of this tree is reflected in its very useful timber, which is pliant but tough, requiring less “heft” for a given strength, and bending with a load easily, only to instantly snap back to its position when the stress slackens. Good hickory is said to be stronger than wrought iron, weight for weight; and I will answer for it that no structure of iron can ever have half the grace, as well as strength, freely displayed by this same old shagbark of the lowlands near my home.

Curious as I am to see the blooms of the trees I am getting acquainted with, there are many disappointments to be endured as when the favorite tree under study is reached a day too late, and I must wait a year for another opportunity. It was, therefore, with much joy that I found that a trip carefully timed for another fine old hickory along the Conodoguinet an Indian-named stream of angles, curves, many trees and much beauty had brought me to the quickly passing bloom feast of this noble American tree. The leaves were about half-grown and half-colored, which means that they displayed an elegance of texture and hue most pleasing to see. And the flowers there they were, hanging under the twigs in long clusters of what I might describe as ends of chenille, if it were not irreverent to compare these delicate greenish catkins with anything man-made!

This fine shagbark was kind to the cameraman, for some of its lower branches drooped and hung down close enough to the “bars” of the rail fence to permit the photographic eye to be turned on them. Then came the tantalizing wait for stillness! I have frequently found that a wind, absolutely unnoticeable before, became obtrusively strong just when the critical moment arrived, and I have fancied that the lightly hung leaflets I have waited upon fairly shook with merriment as they received the gentle zephyr, imperceptible to my heated brow, but vigorous enough to keep them moving. Often, too indeed nearly always I have found that after exhausting my all too scanty stock of patience, and making an “exposure” in despair, the errant blossoms and leaflets would settle down into perfect immobility, as if to say, “There! don’t be cross we’ll behave,” when it was too late.

But the shagbark at last was good to me, and I could leave with the comfortable feeling that I was carrying away a little bit of nature’s special work, a memorandum of her rather private processes of fruit-making, without injuring any part of the inspected trees. It has been a sorrow to me that I have not seen that great hickory later in the year, when the clusters of tassels have become bunches of husk-covered nuts. To get really acquainted with any tree, it should be visited many times in a year. Starting with the winter view, one observes the bark, the trend and character of the limbs, the condition of the buds. The spring opening of growth brings rapid changes, of both interest and beauty, to be succeeded by the maturity of summer, when, with the ripened foliage overhead, everything is different. Again, when the fruit is on, and the touch of Jack Frost is baring the tree for the smoother passing of the winds of winter, there is another aspect. I have great respect for the tree-lover who knows unerringly his favorites at any time of the year, for have I not myself made many mistakes, especially when no leaves are at hand as pointers? The snow leaves nothing to be seen but the cunning framework of the tree tell me, then, is it ash, or elm, or beech? Which is sugar-maple, and which red, or sycamore?

One summer walk in the deep forest, my friend the doctor, who knows many things besides the human frame, was puzzled at a sturdy tree bole, whose leaves far overhead mingled so closely with the neighboring greenery of beech and birch that in the dim light they gave no help. First driving the small blade of his pocket-knife deep into the rugged bark of the tree in question, he withdrew it, and then smelled and tasted, exclaiming, “Ah, I thought so; it is the wild cherry!” And, truly, the characteristic prussic-acid odor, the bitter taste, belonging to the peach and cherry families, were readily noted; and another Sherlock Holmes tree fact came to me!

Of other hickories I know little, for the false shagbark, the mockernut, the pignut, and the rest of the family have not been disclosed to me often enough to put me at ease with them. There are to be more tree friends, both human and arborescent, and more walks with the doctor and the camera, I hope!

We of the cold North, as we crack the toothsome pecan, hardly realize its kinship with the hickory. It is full brother to our shellbark, which is, according to botany, Hicoria ovata, while the Southern tree is Hicoria pecan. A superb tree it is, too, reaching up amid its vigorous associates of the forests of Georgia, Alabama and Texas to a height exceeding one hundred and fifty feet. Its upright and elegant form, of a grace that conceals its great height, its remarkable usefulness, and its rather rapid growth, commend it highly. The nut-clusters are striking, having not only an interesting outline, but much richness of color, in greens and russets.

It may seem odd to include the beech under the nut-bearing trees, to those of us who know only the nursery-grown forms of the European beech, “weeping” and twisted, with leaves of copper and blood, as seen in parks and pleasure-grounds. But the squirrels would agree; they know well the sweet little triangular nuts that ripen early in fall.

The pure American beech, uncontaminated and untwisted with the abnormal forms just mentioned, is a tree that keeps itself well in the eye of the woods rambler; and that eye is always pleasured by it, also. Late in winter, the light gray branches of a beech thicket on a dry hillside on the edge of my home city called attention to their clean elegance amid sordid and forbidding surroundings, and it was with anger which I dare call righteous that I saw a hideous bill-board erected along the hillside, to shut out the always beautiful beeches from sight as I frequently passed on a trolley car! I have carefully avoided buying anything of the merchants who have thus set up their announcements where they are an insult; and it might be noted that these and other offensive bill-boards are to others of like mind a sort of reverse advertising they tell us what not to purchase.

Years ago I chanced to be present at a birth of beech leaves, up along Paxton Creek. It was late in the afternoon, and our reluctant feet were turning homeward, after the camera had seen the windings of the creek against the softening light, when the beeches over-arching the little stream showed us this spring marvel. The little but perfectly formed leaves had just opened, in pairs, with a wonderful covering of silvery green, as they hung downward toward the water, yet too weak to stand out and up to the passing breeze. The exquisite delicacy of these trembling little leaves, the arching elegance of the branches that had just opened them to the light, made it seem almost sacrilegious to turn the lens upon them.

Often since have I visited the same spot, in hope to see again this awakening, but without avail. The leaves show me their silky completeness, rustling above the stream in softest tree talk; the curious staminate flower-clusters hang like bunches of inverted commas; the neat little burs, with their inoffensive prickles, mature and discharge the angular nuts but I am not again, I fear, to be present at the hour of the leaf-birth of the beech’s year.

The beech, by the way, is tenacious of its handsome foliage. Long after most trees have yielded their leaves to the frost, the beech keeps its clothing, turning from the clear yellow of fall to lightest fawn, and hanging out in the forest a sign of whiteness that is cheering in the winter and earliest spring. These bleached-out leaves will often remain until fairly pushed off by the opening buds of another year.

Of the hazelnut or filbert, I know nothing from the tree side, but I cannot avoid mentioning another botanically unrelated so-called hazel the witch-hazel. This small tree is known to most of us only as giving name to a certain soothing extract. It is worthy of more attention, for its curious and delicately sweet yellow flowers, seemingly clusters of lemon-colored threads, are the very last to bloom, opening bravely in the very teeth of Jack Frost. They are a delight to find, on the late fall rambles; and the next season they are followed by the still more curious fruits, which have a habit of suddenly opening and fairly ejaculating their seeds. A plucked branch of these fruits, kept in a warm place a few hours, will show this another of nature’s efficient methods for spreading seeds, in full operation if one watches closely enough. The flowers and the fruits are on the tree at the same time, just as with the orange of the tropics.

Speaking of a tropical fruit, I am reminded that the greatest nut of all, though certainly not an American native, is nevertheless now grown on American soil. Some years ago a grove of lofty cocoanut palms in Yucatan fascinated me, and the opportunity to drink the clear and refreshing milk (not milky at all, and utterly different from the familiar contents of the ripened nut of commerce) was gladly taken. Now the bearing trees are within the bounds of the United States proper, and the grand trees in Southern Florida give plenty of fruit. The African citizens of that neighborhood are well aware of the refreshing character of the “juice” of the green cocoanut, and a friend who sees things for me with a camera tells with glee how a “darky” at Palm Beach left him in his wheel-chair to run with simian feet up a sloping trunk, there to pull, break open, and absorb the contents of a nut, quite as a matter of course. I have myself seen the Africans of the Bahamas in the West Indies climbing the glorious cocoa palms of the coral keys, throwing down the mature nuts, and then, with strong teeth, stripping the tough outer covering to get at the refreshing interior.

All these nut trees are only members of the great family of trees given by God for man’s good, I firmly believe; for man first comes into Biblical view in a garden of trees, and the city and the plain are but penances for sin!