Part 12 (2/2)

The walnut harvest, which begins about the first of October, is a busy time. Men, women, boys, and girls may be seen in the groves, shaking the nuts from the trees, picking them up, and putting them into sacks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 61.--A Walnut Grove.]

The men shake the trees, and there is a shower of nuts to the earth. Do not go under the branches now unless you want to be pelted. A single tree has been known to yield three hundred pounds of nuts in a season.

When the trees have been given a good shaking, there are still some nuts clinging to the branches. These are obtained by shaking the limbs separately, by means of long poles, to the ends of which wire hooks are fastened. As all of the nuts do not ripen at the same time, the trees are sometimes gone over two or three times.

Now the boys, girls, and women go to work filling pails and baskets and emptying them into sacks, for they can do this work as well as men.

Usually the nuts drop out of their covering or _shuck_ when they strike the ground; but if they do not, the _shuck_ must be removed. Sometimes the covering is cut off. If you handle the nuts with your bare hands, they will be stained almost black, and you will have to let the color wear off.

The days are bright and warm, and this sort of nutting becomes rather tiresome before sundown. The work must be done and the vacation is not a very long one, so each does his part cheerfully.

When the nuts have been gathered, they are taken to the shed or place where they are to be washed. Here they are poured into a large wire cylinder which revolves in a tank filled with water. The machine is turned by a horse walking round and round, and it both washes and grades the nuts. The smaller ones pa.s.s through the meshes in the wire and are called _second grade_. The larger ones are known as _first grade_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 62.--Was.h.i.+ng, Drying, and Sacking Walnuts.]

When the walnuts come out of the washer, they are spread out on shallow, wooden trays to dry. Sometimes several thousand trays may be seen on one ranch. They are loaded on to a small car and pushed to the part of the field where they are wanted.

If there is no foggy or cloudy weather, they will dry in about five days, but if there is, it may take ten.

After the nuts are thoroughly dried, the trays are placed on the car and pushed to the _bleacher_. This is a large box made of tarred paper. It is placed over the trays, and a quant.i.ty of sulphur is burned in it.

This is simply to whiten the sh.e.l.ls, for they sell for a higher price when they are bleached. Sometimes the nuts are whitened by dipping them into a liquid preparation.

The nuts are now sacked and marked, ready to s.h.i.+p. Soon after the boys and girls have finished their ”walnut vacation,” the nuts are on their way to the eastern part of the United States.

Most of the walnuts raised in California have soft sh.e.l.ls. Some have such thin sh.e.l.ls that they are called ”paper sh.e.l.ls.” The walnuts that grow in the woods of Indiana, Illinois, and other states have hard sh.e.l.ls. They are dark in color and are called _black walnuts_. The trees are quite valuable, as the wood is used in making furniture.

CHESTNUTS

Let us go on a chestnutting expedition to the southern part of France.

We can gather the nuts in many of the states of our own country, but the trip to a strange land will be enjoyed by all.

The chestnut trees, many of which are very old, spread their branches to great distances. The nuts, as you see, are inclosed in a _bur_ or coat which covers the sh.e.l.l. There are generally two nuts in each bur.

When _you_ eat chestnuts, you eat them as a sort of dainty, not as a regular article of food. This is not the case in the home of Jean, the boy who is helping his father fill those sacks. In his home, as in many homes in southern Europe, the nuts form one of the chief articles of daily food.

In the winter Jean sells the freshly roasted nuts on a street corner in the city of Lyons. He gets a good many pennies each noon from workmen and poor people generally, who use them for their midday meal. He sells ten nuts for a penny.

This is not the only way in which they are eaten. Jean's mother boils them with celery and mashes them as we do potatoes. The nuts are also ground into a flour from which bread is made. They are often used in the dressing for fowls.

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