Part 16

Some kinds of plants live in the water or on the edge of it. These often have seeds or seed pods light enough to float. You can generally see little seeds floating about on ponds, if you take the trouble to look.

Into these ponds come ducks or herons or other waterfowl. The birds come to find something to eat, and as they swim or wade about they come in contact with the wet seeds that cling to them. After a time the birds, bearing the seeds on plumage, beak, or feet, fly to another pond or marsh, and as they alight the seeds are floated off.

The wind then blows them to the shore, or else in time, if they live in the water, they sink to the bottom and sprout.

The cocoanut is a seed that is surrounded by a strong shell and a thick coat of fiber that protects it from the water and also makes it light.

The nut inside this thick overcoat is hollow when ripe, excepting for a watery liquid that we call the milk of the cocoanut. As we see cocoanuts in stores, the outer coat has been taken off.

Cocoanuts grow near the tops of tall cocoanut palms, and these palms are fond of standing on the seashore. When the nuts get ripe they often fall in the sea and are carried long distances by the ocean currents. In this way, no doubt, many a coral island has received its lovely fringe of cocoanut palms.

The nuts are floated to these little islands and washed into crevices on them, where they lodge and in time grow into stately trees.

The cocoanut palm is a very important tree in tropical countries. The nuts are used as food, and a valuable oil is obtained from them. Cocoa oil is used for illuminating and also for making salves.

The thick fiber that surrounds the nut is strong and tough and is made into cloth, matting, brushes, baskets, coarse rope, and a number of things. Matting is used in some hot countries to make the sides of houses, and the cocoanut fiber is useful to thatch roofs.

The wood of the tree is hard and durable and is made into many household articles. The hard shell of the nut makes good cups and dishes. So you see the cocoanut tree affords almost everything the people in the hot countries need.

They make their houses and furnish them from it, they get food and drink from it, for the milk of the cocoanut is a very pleasant beverage, and they use the oil to light their abodes at night. No wonder the people value this noble tree very highly.

SEEDS THAT ANIMALS LIKE TO EAT.

THE HICKORY.

The meat of the hickory nut is a seed. The hickory tree bears two kinds of blossoms. Like the willow, it has staminate catkins and also bears pistillate flowers, from which grow nuts. Some hickory catkins are very long and slender and make pretty green tassels on the trees in the spring. Hickory nuts are good to eat, and you may wonder how these delicious nuts, that many creatures are fond of, ever get a chance to grow.

Squirrels are fond of nuts, and they are generally on hand when the nuts are ripe.

The green nuts have an outer covering that splits open when the nut is ripe and lets it fall to the ground. Of course when a squirrel has eaten a nut, that is the end of it. But squirrels are good housekeepers and store away nuts in holes in the trees or in the ground. Chipmunks do the same, and some birds, as nutcrackers and blue jays, hide nuts in the same way. Often these nuts are forgotten, or else the little creature that hid them may die or be killed. Then the nuts that have been put in the ground have nothing to do but grow when spring warms the earth.

You see they have been planted by the little nut lovers, that certainly had no intention of planting them. No doubt a great many nut trees get started in this way.

Hickory nuts are often called “walnuts” in New England. The hickory tree belongs to North America, and before this continent was discovered only the Indians enjoyed hickory nuts. Now they are sent to England, and indeed all over the world.

The wood of the hickory is hard, tough, and flexible and is very valuable.

Andrew Jackson was called “Old Hickory” because of his unyielding nature, and when you study the history of the United States, or read the life of Jackson, you will not wonder that he was so named.

Hickory switches were used long ago when children were naughty; they were preferred to willow, because they did not break so easily.

A better use to put hickory to is to burn it. Hickory logs make a very hot and beautiful fire, and hickory is one of the best of woods to burn in fireplaces.

WALNUTS AND BUTTERNUTS.

Black walnuts grow on large, handsome trees of very hard, fragrant, dark-colored wood. Walnut wood used to be prized more highly than it is to-day for furniture and the inside finish to houses. It takes a fine polish but grows rather dark and somber-looking with age.

The black walnut is a native of the eastern part of North America. It belongs to the same family as the hickory and, like that, bears two kinds of flowers.

The nuts have hard, thick, black shells, and also a softer outer covering, or rind, that is very bitter and disagreeable to the taste, and that stains the fingers a dark brown.

The “meat,” or kernel, of the walnut is very oily, and some people do not like it because of its rather strong flavor. Squirrels are fond of walnuts, however, and often plant them in the way we have seen.

The English walnut is an Asiatic tree belonging to the same family, which has been cultivated in Europe and, to a small extent, in this country. Its nut is larger than the black walnut, has a thin shell and a large, sweet kernel. The nut is delicious and a great favorite at Christmas time. It is sometimes picked green and pickled, and some people are very fond of pickled walnuts.