and none of great age are recorded here. When cut down, or when killed to the ground by frost in their young state, they push shoots freely from the stool, though they do not produce suckers,
Dawson in Garden and Forest, ix. 77 (1896), gives an account of his method of grafting the cultivated varieties of hickory, and says that the best stock is the bitternut, which grows twice as fast at Boston as the common shagbark. He performs the operation under glass in the month of January, by side-grafting close to
the collar of the stock, and plunging the pots into sphagnum moss up to the top bud of the graft.
Timber of the Hickories
The best account of the wood is given by Michaux and Emerson. The timber of the different species is so similar in appearance, that I doubt if any one could identify without the names, the six species illustrated by Hough; and as this author rarely mentions the age or origin of the trees from which his specimens were taken, or shows much personal knowledge of their peculiarities, his work is not of so much practical value as it might have been.
Michaux specially commends the timber of the shellbark and the pignut. Emerson does not say which is best, but says that the most valuable is that which has been grown most rapidly, and places the pignut and shellbark first for weight.
As fuel hickory is, or rather was in days when it was abundant, preferred to all other woods. But its greatest value is for carriage building, axe and tool handles, and especially for cask hoops, of which in Michaux's time large quantities were exported, as well as used at home. Now, however, it is superseded to a great extent for this purpose by iron.
An article on hickory by Mr. J.F. Brown in Arboriculture, vi. No. 4, states that the great demand for hoops in the apple-growing districts of Virginia, is rapidly exhausting the local supply of young trees, which is now being filled from Southern Indiana, and that in consequence the supply of second-growth timber fit for wheels and carriage work is likely to become diminished, and in well-settled regions is already exhausted. He states that when the trees are cut and put on the market, no discrimination is made between the different species, though second-growth hickory is always preferred to the timber of old trees, because it is more elastic, tougher, and stronger. He quotes a report of a meeting of over 200 representatives of the carriage-building industry at Chicago, at which it was stated that the hickory trees have recently been attacked by insects to such an extent, that unless some means can be taken to check their ravages, there will be no more hickory available in ten years; and though ash, maple, and other woods have been tried as a substitute, there is no other wood so suitable for this industry as hickory. It is imported to some extent to Europe, usually in the form of second-growth poles, which are produced from the stool and are used by carriage builders.
Cobbett,[1] with his usual enthusiasm for everything from America, urged that the hickory should be planted for coppice wood on account of the value of the hoops
- ↑ Woodlands, arts. 295, 296 (1825).
