There are several varieties of wild grapes, all, I think, edible but not all pleasant to the taste. The fox-grape is sweet, but has a musky flavor and odor, a thick skin, and a tough pulp. The fruit ripens in September but few care to eat it. The vine grows luxuriantly and is very common. The summer grape is another tough-skinned grape. It is not musky but is generally astringent. The vine resembles the fox-grape in growth, being strong and vigorous. The fruit of the blue grape is sour and hangs in long, heavy clusters. It is usually found along water-ways.
Fruits common to most of the States.
Frost-Grape or Chicken-Grape
If you try to eat the frost-grapes before frost you will find them decidedly sour, but after a good frost they are really fine. They have a snappy, spicy flavor all their own, and one eats them, like currants, skin and all. They are small, round, and black with a slight bloom. The clusters are well-filled and hang loosely. The vine grows luxuriantly, branching from a large trunk, and is found in wet places and on the banks of streams, though it does well in the open and in drier soil. It flourishes in New England and down to Illinois and westward to Nebraska. The leaves usually suggest three lobes but are mostly undivided. They are coarsely toothed and the under side bears occasional hairs along the veins.
Wild Nuts. Black Walnuts
Of all the wild-growing foods, nuts are, perhaps, the most nutritious. The black walnut, not plentiful in the Atlantic States but abundant in the Middle States and in the Mississippi Valley, has a rich, wild flavor, and a deep-brown stain for the hands that tear it from its ball-like covering of tough, pimply green which forms the outer husk. The nut is sometimes oblong, sometimes almost round, with a deeply grooved, hard, brown shell. It grows in pairs or solitary. The tree is large, often reaching the height of one hundred feet, and its trunk is from four to six feet in diameter. The bark is dark brown with deep vertical grooves and its surface is broken with thick scales. The leaves are compound, growing on a middle stem which is sometimes two feet long. Each leaflet is a narrow oval, sharply pointed at the end, and usually about three inches long. The nuts require frost to ripen them.
Butternut
While the butternut-tree is much like the walnut in general appearance, it does not grow as large. The nuts are different in shape and in flavor, and the leaflets are hairy instead of smooth. The butternut does not grow as far north as the walnut, but is often found side by side with the walnut in the Middle States. The green outer covering of the nut is oblong and sticky on the surface, and, like the walnut, will stain the hands. The shell is hard, brown, oblong, and pointed at one end. It is deeply grooved. The flavor is rich but the nut being oily soon becomes rancid.