Speaker 1: Chapter seven of Ten Common Trees. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: by Larry Wilson, Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes Chestnut Trees.
Speaker 1: Have you ever hunted chestnuts? Then you must go to
Speaker 1: the country some day in October. A day in the
Speaker 1: woods in October is something almost better than a day
Speaker 1: in June. Some morning when the air is crisp and cool,
Speaker 1: when the frost is on the ground. Put some apples
Speaker 1: and cookies in your pocket, and a long stick with
Speaker 1: a crook at the end over your shoulder. As you
Speaker 1: run across the hard white ground, you can shout and
Speaker 1: sing to your heart's content. You can pass the corn
Speaker 1: in shock and tumble from the stack of straw. The
Speaker 1: chipmunk on the fence will list to your whistle, and
Speaker 1: the red squirrel leaped from tree to tree it your approach.
Speaker 1: In the woods, the maples will be scarlet, the ashes purple.
Speaker 1: There will be winter green berries with red jackets and
Speaker 1: white pulp. But you need not stop for these. Find
Speaker 1: the yellow trees with long leaves saw toothed on the edge.
Speaker 1: On the grounds, scattered by last night's wind are some
Speaker 1: long tailed nuts and some prickly burrs. These burrs are
Speaker 1: stiff and covered with sharp branched thorns. They open in
Speaker 1: four parts. When tweaked by the frost. The wind helps
Speaker 1: pull them from the tree. If they should not have fallen,
Speaker 1: take your crook and shake them down. When your pockets
Speaker 1: are full of chestnuts, when you have filled the salt
Speaker 1: sack you brought from home, when you have eaten apples
Speaker 1: with chestnuts and chestnuts with cookies, you can hide your
Speaker 1: sack of nuts while you explore a little. You can
Speaker 1: climb the tree and peep at the gray squirrel stock.
Speaker 1: He is a thrifty little fellow, for he puts by
Speaker 1: only the kernels. You would not think of robbing him.
Speaker 1: The chipmunk, too has a store, but they are underground.
Speaker 1: Once in a while he puts a few together under
Speaker 1: some leaves. But you have found them, and then you
Speaker 1: can go home home to pumpkin pie and dreams of
Speaker 1: chestnuts popping in the ashes. Here is a question for you,
Speaker 1: What are chestnuts? Yes, chestnuts are seeds, but they are
Speaker 1: also young trees, each packed away in a tough brown coat.
Speaker 1: Could you have looked in the burr in July, you
Speaker 1: would have found only some small white nuts. In June
Speaker 1: they would have been so small that they were really
Speaker 1: not nuts at all, but some long necked flowers. Even then,
Speaker 1: the three flowers had a prickly cup. Or in volucar.
Speaker 1: I have told you about the oaks and the cap
Speaker 1: they make for the young acorn. This cup of the
Speaker 1: young chestnut is not very unlike the cap of the acorn.
Speaker 1: It grows much larger, and it holds three flowers instead
Speaker 1: of one. But it shows that the chestnut is a
Speaker 1: relative of the oaks. Their staminate flowers show the same thing.
Speaker 1: In June. The chestnut tree has long catkins of whitish flowers.
Speaker 1: The catkin is made up of numerous clusters of tiny flowers.
Speaker 1: The birds are not born among these, but on separate peduncles,
Speaker 1: as in the oak. Chestnut trees are known to live,
Speaker 1: sometimes to an age of several hundred years. One on
Speaker 1: Mount Etna in Italy is one hundred and ninety feet around.
Speaker 1: It is called the tree of a hundred horses, for
Speaker 1: it once sheltered a queen with her followers it is
Speaker 1: a Spanish or Italian chestnut. Other very old ones are
Speaker 1: found in England. They do not differ maturely from the
Speaker 1: American chestnut, but are frequently planted in America, for the
Speaker 1: nuts are larger. The American chestnut is smaller and sweeter.
Speaker 1: The chestnut has some relatives a little nearer than the oaks.
Speaker 1: They are the chinquipins. The leaves of these are much
Speaker 1: smaller than the chestnut leaves. The edge is only slightly toothed,
Speaker 1: if at all, and the undersurface is downy. The birrs
Speaker 1: are smaller, and there is but one nut instead of three.
Speaker 1: The nut is of course not flattened on the sides.
Speaker 1: One of the chinquipins is a native of the Pacific
Speaker 1: coast and is a tall tree. The other is southern,
Speaker 1: and the trees are quite small. End of Chapter seven