pound and yielded
15.45 per cent of quarters and 2.21 per cent of small pieces, making a
total of 17.66 per cent of kernel. This test was made in April, after
the nuts were rather too dry to crack to the best advantage. At that
time the cracking quality was fair only.

SHERMAN--The Sherman butternut first became known in 1929, when Mrs. E.
Sherman, Montague City, Mass., was awarded ninth prize in the Northern
Nut Growers Association contest of that year. Tested twice in
Washington, it has at neither time rated with the best in so far as
cracking quality is concerned. In 1931 it made the high kernel yield of
29.41 per cent. However, only 11.76 per cent was of quarters. Exactly
the same percentage was of small pieces, and 5.88 per cent of kernels
were bad. In 1932, the total per cent of kernel dropped to 15.31, that
of quarters to 4.78, and that of kernels to 0.96, while that of small
pieces rose to 9.57.

Further studies will be made to see if under optimum conditions of
handling after proper harvesting and curing the record of cracking
quality cannot be improved upon.

Hickories

According to Alfred Rehder, of Harvard, in the Standard Cyclopedia of
Horticulture, six species of hickory are indigenous to that region east
of the Rocky Mountains here discussed under the term of the northernmost
nut zone. These are the shagbark, the shellbark, the sweet hickory, the
pignut, the mockernut and the bitternut. The shagbark hickory, Hicoria
ovata, and the sweet hickory, H. ovalis, are the principal ones among
this group offering promise as sources of varieties fit for cultivation
in this zone. The former is well known as a rich-land species, having
shaggy bark and a more or less sharply angled sweet nut; the latter,
often called pignut, has recently been listed as "sweet hickory" to
distinguish it from H. glabra, also called pignut, yet which is
sometimes better. The sweet hickory is less exacting in soil
requirements than the shagbark, although often nearly or quite as good a
nut, popular prejudice notwithstanding. When shelled the kernels can be
distinguished only with difficulty.

Of the other hickories indigenous to this zone, all are omitted from the
discussion for definite reasons, chief of which is the fact that few or
no seedlings of promise have been found. The shellbark, H. laciniosa,
which is much like the shagbark in many respects, occurs in this zone
sparingly and only in the southernmost part. Nuts of this s