When people speak of the "hickory" without qualification, they are apt to have in mind some one kind of hickory which belonged to their boyhood environment. All other kinds which they happened to know, were qualified in some way, very much as the word "fish" in Boston stands for the codfish only, other kinds of fish in the world being described by qualifying names. In the northeast the hickory means the shagbark. In Missouri it means the shellbark. Elsewhere the pignut and the mockernut are called "hickory." Interest in the subject has increased so rapidly of late years that we must all of us be more particular in our descriptions and add qualifying names, speaking always of the shagbark hickory, pecan hickory, or bitternut hickory as the case may be. Sargent describes fifteen species of hickory and in addition a large number of varieties by environment and by hybridization. There is a Mexican hickory, making sixteen species for the North American continent, and the late Mr. F. N. Meyer, Agricultural Explorer from Washington, has found a hickory in China. Previous to this discovery, it was believed that the hickories belonged to the North American continent only. Botanists divide the hickories into two groups, Apocarya and Eucarya. For convenience in every day conversation, it might be well for us to speak of the "open-bud" group and the "closed bud" group. _Apocarya_ or the "open bud" group, includes the pecan hickory, _Carya pecan_, the bitternut hickory, _Carya cordiformis_, the bitter pecan, _Carya texana_, the water hickory, _Carya aquatica_, the nutmeg hickory, _Carya myristicaeformis_, and the Chinese hickory, _Carya cathayensis_. The winter buds of this group will be seen on examination to show the minute, snugly curled-up leaves which are ready to burst forth when the springtime sun opens the fronds of the ferns which have forced their way through the hard ground with clenched fists. The scale buds in the open-bud group do not cover the tiny leaf forms completely. In _Eucarya_, or the "closed-bud" group, stout scales close the bud completely against the snow and ice of wintry days, so that we see scales only when looking at the bud. The closed-bud hickories include the shagbark, _Carya ovata_, the Carolina hickory, _Carya Carolinae-septentrionalis_, the shellbark, _Carya laciniosa_, the mockernut, _Carya alba_, the smooth-bark hickory, _Carya leiodermis_, the pallid hickory, _Carya pallida_, the close-bark pignut, _Carya glabra_, the loose-bark pignut, _Carya ovalis_, the Florida hickory, _Carya Floridana_, the Buckley hickory, _Carya Buckleyi_, and the Mexican hickory, _Carya Mexicana_.