Although the nut shell is thin and the meat sweet and oily, the kernel
is so small that one must crack dozens of them to get a satisfying
sample of their flavor. This, of course, prevents their having any
commercial value as a nut. There is also the fact that the beechnut is
the slowest growing of all the common nut trees, requiring from twenty
to thirty years to come into bearing as a seedling. Of course this could
be shortened, just as it is in propagating hickories and pecans, by
making grafts on root systems which are ten or more years old, as
explained in the chapter on heartnuts. However, I know of no nursery in
which beechnuts are propagated in this way.
My attempts to grow beechnut trees in Wisconsin have met with little
success. About the year 1922, I obtained 150 trees from the Sturgeon Bay
Nurseries. I planted these on level ground which had clay near the
surface with limestone about a foot under it. Although all of these
trees seemed to start satisfactorily, some even growing about a foot,
within two or three years they had all died. I decided they were not
hardy but I now realize that the character of the soil was responsible
for their gradual death; they should be planted in a limestone or
calcareous soil, preferably of the fine sandy type, the main requisite
being plenty of moisture because of their shallow root system.
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