The Nut Culturist: A Treatise on Propogation, Planting, and Cultivation of Nut Bearing Trees and Shrubs Adapted to the Climate of the United StatesFuller, Andrew S. (Andrew Samuel)
Science
The Nut Culturist: A Treatise on Propogation, Planting, and Cultivation of Nut Bearing Trees and Shrubs Adapted to the Climate of the United States
Fuller, Andrew S. (Andrew Samuel)
Nuts
Isolated beech trees growing by the roadsides in parks and fields
are occasionally attacked by a large grayish, long-horn beetle, the
_Goes pulverulenta_. It is about one inch long, and a rather sturdy
beetle of a light grayish color, and usually infests the branches,
but may occasionally attack the main stem. It is not abundant, and
has seldom been found infesting the beech. There are also two or
three borers of the Buprestis family of beetles which occasionally
attack beech trees. They are distinguished by the broad heads and
flattened bodies of the grubs, and they work just beneath the bark
in the sapwood, causing dead patches, mainly on the south side of
the stem and larger branches. If the dead bark is removed and the
wounds painted they will soon heal over, unless the tree is
suffering for moisture and nutrients at the roots. A few twig
borers, with an occasional colony of caterpillars on the leaves,
embody about all the insect enemies of the beech calling for any
special attention, but there are a host of different species and
kinds ever ready to pounce upon a sickly or dead tree, whether found
in the field or forest.
=Properties and Uses.=--The beechnut has been so long and favorably
known that very little need be said here in regard to its properties
and uses. In the forests it affords food for many kinds of birds,
such as the wild turkey, partridge or grouse, and especially the
pigeon, and immense flocks of these collect in the beech forests in
autumn to feed upon the nuts. Deer are very fond of these nuts, and
so are all of the squirrel family, and the little ground squirrel or
chipmunk, _Tamias striatus_, of our Northern States, gives us a good
practical lesson in the way of preserving the nuts over winter.
These little rodents pack away the nuts in small pockets in their
burrows and from two to three feet below the surface, where they are
protected from excessive moisture and any considerable change of
temperature. The chipmunk always stores the nuts in the ground, and
not in hollow logs, as is sometimes asserted. The deer-mouse
(_Hesperomys leucopus_), however, does select such places for
putting away his winter's supply, but more frequently he chooses a
hollow in the stem of some old tree, and several feet from the
ground. Unlike the chipmunk, this mouse cleans the shells from the
kernels, storing only the latter, and I have often found a quart or
more when cutting down trees in winter. These kernels are usually so
clean, bright, and free from odor, that it is to be feared the
finder always confiscates them for his own use.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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