8400.
Remarks.
The sap contains sugar and is occasionally mixed with maple-sap in the manufacturing of "maple" sugar. [p051]
PLATE 10. HICKORY (Hicoria ovata).
HICKORY. (Hicoria or Carya.)
The Hickories occur only in the eastern part of North America. They produce woods in which the qualities of toughness, elasticity, and resilience are unusually pronounced, and since these qualities are greatest in the sapwood, hickories are peculiar in that the sapwood is more valuable than the heart. Second-growth wood is much prized, since, being younger, it contains more of the pliable sapwood.[32]
Hickory is not durable when exposed and is more or less subject to attack by boring-insects. It is used for implements, machinery, carriages, and the like; hickory axe-helves have no superiors. The nuts of the shagbark or white hickory are a source of considerable profit. The pecan (Hicoria pecan) affords wood so inferior as to be little used in construction, although it makes an excellent fuel. Pecans are planted in many of the Southern States because of the nuts, for which a considerable demand exists.
The Hickories are known by their nuts, the husks or pods of which loosen completely from the nut in four pieces, instead of adhering unbroken as in the case of the walnuts. The nine species are American trees, eight of them being natives of the United States. Carya was the Greek name of the common walnut. Hickory is said to be derived from the Indian powcohicora, a liquor once obtained from the nuts of the hickory. [p052]