Pickled walnuts are a highly prized delicacy in households where "culturine" has not taken the place of old-fashioned household arts. The nuts are gathered when green, before the shell has hardened. If a knitting needle can be pushed clear through the nut, it is not too old for pickling. You will be fortunate if you can get a receipt from some housewife who has time for real culture as well as for making pickles. _Receipt for Pickled Walnuts._--(From my great aunt's cook-book.) Ingredients: One hundred walnuts, salt and water, one gallon of vinegar, two ounces of whole black pepper, half an ounce of cloves, one ounce of allspice, one ounce of root ginger sliced, one ounce of mace. Gather the nuts in July when they are full grown. They should be soft enough to be pierced all through with a needle. Prick them all well through. Let them remain nine days in brine (four pounds of salt to each gallon of water), changing the brine every third day. Drain them, and let them remain in the sun two or three days until they become black. Put them into jars, not quite filling them. Boil the vinegar and spices together ten minutes, and pour the liquid over the walnuts. They will be fit for use in a month, and will keep for years. BEECHNUTS The boys of your neighbourhood may not know that the smooth, gray-barked trees with very long, slender, pointed buds are beeches. They may never have noticed the wonderful gray-green colour nor delicate texture of the newly opened leaves, nor the soft, silky flower head that bears the pollen. Too many boys think these preliminaries are of no importance. The chances are strong that when October ripens the nuts, nobody has any difficulty in locating beech trees, if there are any in the vicinity. Usually, in the wild woods, they grow in large groups of various sizes; the big trees sheltering the little ones until they are strong enough to live in the full sunlight. Do boys and girls find the beeches by instinct just as the mice, the blue jays, the squirrels, and the foraging hogs do?