This is a tree peculiar to Northeastern America, and one of the most rugged, magnificent specimens to be found anywhere in the same temperate climate. It is especially adapted for broad treatment in landscape gardening, and should be planted where there is plenty of room for its full development, and where one can admire its lofty proportions and symmetry. It is one among many trees, which is seen at its best in winter unhampered by foliage, and then its naked boughs are so inky black, that it seems as if it were etched against the sky. These very dark colored branches are characteristic of the hickories, and help one to distinguish the trees at a distance. The rough bark shagging off in curving plates, and the buds with the same shagging, curving outer scales are the distinctive characteristics of the shagbark in winter. [Illustration: SHAGBARK HICKORY _Hicoria ovata_ Page 50 ] [Illustration: TRUNKS OF SHAGBARK HICKORIES Page 51 ] The wood is heavy, hard, tough, and close-grained, and it is used for agricultural implements, axe handles, wagon stock, walking sticks, and baskets. In tensile strength and in the weight of compression, a block of hickory is as strong as wrought iron of the same length and weight. No other American wood burns with such brilliancy or gives out so much heat as the shagbark. The fruit of this tree is edible and sweet, and the nuts have greater commercial value than those of any other hickory. The generic name, _hicoria_, is of Indian origin and comes from _powcohicora_, the name of an oily emulsion made from the pounded kernels of mockernuts by the Virginian Algonkins. _Ovata_ (egg-shaped) refers to the shape of the leaves. The shagbark is found from Southern Maine to Florida and westward to Central Kansas. The forests of Indiana, once the centre of the hickory trade, are now exhausted. The hickories are confined to Eastern North America alone, and are a genus of rare and very valuable trees. [Sidenote: Mockernut; or Whiteheart Hickory _Hicoria alba_] _A tall tree 60 to 100 feet high, with a lofty head. Bark smooth, with close, wavy furrows,—a distinctive characteristic of the tree. Large, hard, round buds, without the dark outer scales peculiar to the shagbark, but with downy, yellowish brown scales. Coarse twigs; alternate leaf-scars. Nut somewhat hexagonal, with a very thick shell, and a hard, thick husk._