SHAGBARK HICKORY
(Hicoria Ovata)

Twelve species of hickory grow in the United States, all east of the Rocky Mountains. None grow anywhere else in the world, as far as known. They were widely dispersed over the northern hemisphere in prehistoric times. The records of geology, written by leaf prints in the rocks, tell of forests of hickory in Europe, and even in Greenland, probably a hundred thousand or more years ago, and certainly not in times that can be called recent. No records there later than the ice age have been found. This leads to the presumption that the sheet of ice which pushed down from the North and covered the larger portions of Europe and North America, overwhelmed the hickory forests, and all others, as far as the southern limit of the ice’s advance.

In Europe the hickory was utterly destroyed, and it never returned after the close of the reign of ice; but America was more fortunate. The ice sheet pushed little farther in its southward course than the Ohio and Missouri rivers, and forests south of there held their ground, and they slowly worked their way back north as the ice withdrew. Hickory recovered part but not all of its lost ground in America, for it is now found no farther north than southern Canada, which is more than a thousand miles from its old range in Greenland.

The early settlers in New England and in the South at once came into contact with hickory. It was one of the first woods named in this country, and the name is of Indian origin, and is spelled in no fewer than seventeen ways in early literature relating to the settlements. It is probable that John Smith, a prominent man in early Virginia and New England, was the first man who ever wrote the name. He spelled it as the Indians pronounced it, “powcohiscora,” and it has been trimmed down to our word hickory. The Indian word was the name of a salad or soup made of pounded hickory nuts and water, and was only indirectly applied to the tree itself.

The first settlers along the Atlantic coast nearly always called this tree a walnut, and the name white walnut was common. They were unacquainted with any similar nut-bearing tree in Europe, except the walnut, and most people preferred applying a name with which they were already familiar. Hickories and walnuts belong to the same family, and have many points in common.

Although there are twelve hickories in the United States, and in many respects they are similar, all are not of equal value. Some are very scarce, and the wood of others is not up to standard. From a commercial standpoint, four surpass the others. These are shagbark (Hicoria ovata), shellbark (Hicoria laciniosa), pignut (Hicoria glabra), and mockernut (Hicoria alba). The wood of some of the others is as good, but is scarce; and still others, particularly the pecans, are abundant enough, but the wood is inferior. It is impossible in business to separate the hickories. Lumbermen do not do it; manufacturers cannot do it. In some regions one is more abundant than the others, and consequently is used in larger quantities, but in some other region a different species may predominate in the forest and in the factory. It cannot be truthfully asserted that one hickory is always as good as another, or even that a certain species in one region is as good as the same species in another region. All parts of the same tree do not produce wood of equal value.

Along certain general lines, hickories have many properties in common. The wood is ring-porous, that is, the inner edge of the yearly growth ring has a row of large pores. Others are scattered toward the outer part of the ring, generally decreasing in number and size outward. There is no distinct division between spring and summerwood. The medullary rays are thin and obscure. The unaided eye seldom notices them. The sapwood is white in all species of hickory, and is usually very thick. The heartwood is reddish. Common opinion has long held that sapwood is tougher and more elastic than heartwood, and therefore to be preferred for most purposes. Tests made a few years ago by the United States Forest Service ran counter to the long-established opinion of users, by showing that in most respects the redwood of the heart was as good as the white sapwood. However, where resiliency is the chief requisite, as in slender handles, many manufacturers still prefer sapwood.

Hickory is very strong, probably the strongest wood in common use in this country. The statement that one wood is stronger than all others is hardly justified because averages of strength should be taken, and not isolated instances. Satisfactory averages have not yet been worked out for a large number of our woods; but, as far as existing figures may be accepted, hickory is at the head of the list for strength, toughness, and resiliency. Choice samples of certain woods may exceed the average of hickory in some of these particulars. Sugar maple, hornbeam, and locust occasionally show greater strength than hickory, but they lack in toughness and resiliency—the very properties which give hickory its chief value for many purposes.

Considerable misunderstanding exists as to second growth hickory. Some suppose it consists of trees of commercial size developed from sprouts where old trees have been cut. That is not generally correct. When small hickory trees are cut, the stumps often sprout, but hoop poles are about the only commodity made from that kind of hickory. If sprouts are left to grow large, the trees produced are generally defective. Good hickory grows from the nut. The term “second growth” means little, unless it is explained in each instance just what conditions are included. In one sense, all young, vigorous trees are second growth, and that is often the idea in the mind of the speaker. Some would restrict it to trees which have come up in old fields or partial clearings, where they have plenty of light, and have grown rapidly. Their trunks are short, the wood is tough, and there is little red heartwood. The larger a pine, oak, or poplar, provided it is sound, the better the wood; but not so with hickory. Great age and large size add no desirable qualities to this wood.

Shagbark is largest of the true hickories. The pecans are not usually regarded as true hickories from the wood-user’s viewpoint. Some shagbarks are 120 feet high and four feet in diameter, but the average size is about seventy-five tall, two in diameter. There is confusion of names among all the hickories, and shagbark is misnamed and over-named as often as any of the others. Many persons do not know shagbark and shellbark apart, though the ranges of the two species lie only partly in the same territory. Shagbark is known as shellbark hickory, shagbark hickory, shellbark, upland hickory, hickory, scaly bark hickory, white walnut, walnut, white hickory, and red heart hickory. Most of the names refer to the bark, which separates into thin strips, often a foot or more long, and six inches or more wide; and this remains more or less closely attached to the trunk by the middle, giving the shaggy appearance to which the tree owes its common name.

The leaf-buds are large and ovate, with yellowish-green and brown scales. The leaves are compound and alternate; they have rough stalks containing five or seven leaflets; they are sessile, tapering to a point and having a rounded base. The lower pair of leaflets is markedly different from the rest in shape; sharply serrate and thin; dark green and glabrous above; lighter below. The flowers do not appear until the leaves have fully matured. They grow in catkins; the staminate ones are light green, slender, and grow in groups of three on long peduncles; the pistillate ones grow in spikes of from two to five flowers. The fruit grows within a dense, green husk, shiny and smooth on the outside, opening in four parts. The nut is nearly white, four-angled, and flattened at the sides. The kernel is sweet and of a strong flavor.

This tree’s range is not much short of 1,000,000 square miles, but it is not equally abundant in all parts. It grows from southern Maine to western Florida; is found in Minnesota and Nebraska, and southward beyond the Mississippi. It is most common and of largest size on the western slopes of the southern Appalachian mountains and in the basin of the lower Ohio river. Its favorite habitat is on low hills, or near streams and swamps, in rich and moderately well drained soil.

The hickories have long tap roots, and they do best in soils which the tap roots can penetrate, going down like a radish. The root system makes most hickories difficult trees to transplant. Early in life they do a large part of their growing under ground, and when that growth is interrupted, as it must be in transplanting, the young tree seldom recovers. Those who would grow hickories for timber, nuts, or as ornaments, should plant the seed where the tree is expected to remain. Most of the planting of hickory in the forest is done by squirrels which bury nuts, with the apparent expectation of digging them up later. Occasionally one is missed, and a young tree starts.

The uses of this wood are typical of all the other hickories. Handles and light vehicles consume most of it. The markets are in all parts of this country, and in manufacturing centers in many foreign lands.