Page 17 - Genesis Gazette

There were several Butternut trees in the city that we usually visited each September to harvest the nuts from for snacks, cookies, and candy. Sadly most of them perished in the 1938 hurricane and where we usually ended up with 2 and 3 bushels of nuts, we were lucky to collect a full bushel in the years that followed. The Butternut tree was really a softwood tree so it couldn't defend itself against the horror that descended upon it that windy day. However, it was a moderate-to-fast grower, so within a year or two we were back in business. The tree across the street provided all the nuts we could savage in 1938 as all the nuts from the other trees that survived the storm were swept away in the clean up activities before we could get there first. I don't believe we ended up with more than a half bushel of nuts that year.The tree that lost its top grew back from the sides and produced more than normal every year thereafter. 1939 was a good year as when trees are stressed they usually bloom and produce more. In the years that followed, there were less and less trees in the city. Everyone thought the trees were messy and a fungus appeared in the early 1940's so the trees were being cut down. The last Butternut candy I had was in 1943. We made Butternut fudge. That fall we gathered nuts from what was across the street and another large tree that was somewhere near Howard Street. Dad had a garden near there in the 1930s and I had harvested nuts there before. Fortunately the tree was still there and we could get enough to make a snack, cookies, and candy for the last time. The last Butternut tree I saw was in 2003. It was trying to grow out of a home foundation in Mariborough, Massachusetts near the Community House on Main Street. Dad always used to cuss every spring when the nuts the squirrels had planted started to poke their pretty leaves up out of the ground. In order to be able to have the nuts for food in the winter time, the Squirrels would bury them in places that didn’t freeze solid like up close to foundations, under steps or porches. The nuts they didn't use during the winter would all of a sudden come sprouting up everywhere.I don't know where any Butternut trees are today, but it would be interesting to taste one again. Anyone who has never seen the nuts, they are a velvety sticky green on the tree. As they ripen the green casing turns brown and then it begins to fall off. Green nuts are bitter and not edible. The nut is about the size of a Walnut and shaped like a football with deep furrows. To open it you need a piece of railroad iron and a hammer. The nut meat has to be dugout of the shell so you seldom have large pieces. They have a taste all their own, but are no better than walnuts, just something that we could use in the days when we didn't have any money.
15 GENESISGAZETTE September 2020