" a word which has been abbreviated and modified to
"_Hickory_," the name by which we now designate not only the nuts, but
the tree and its wood.

It is interesting to note that a similar creamy or butter-like substance
was derived by a similar process from various palm nuts in Central and
South America. Cieza de Leon describes such a process in his Chronicle
of Peru, in connection with a nut which was described as _Cocos
butyraceae_, but which was not a true _Cocos_, or coconut. Long before
the discovery of America, a somewhat similar process was used in the
Nicobar Islands for extracting a creamy substance from the grated kernel
of the true coconut, _Cocos nucifera_, which in early times was called
_Nux indica_. This process is still followed throughout Polynesia. Some
of the most savory dishes of the Samoans and the natives of Guam are
enriched and flavored with this coconut cream, which is a substance
quite distinct from the water, or so-called milk, contained in the
hollow kernel of the nut, which is so commonly used for drinking.

Coming back to America, I would call attention to the value of some of
our native pine nuts and acorns as food staples. Certain Indian tribes
of the Southwest live upon pine nuts at certain seasons when they are
ripe. Dr. C. Hart Merriam has told of the utilization of acorns by
various tribes of Indians in a beautifully illustrated article published
in the National Geographic Magazine, 1918, entitled "The Acorn, a
Possibly Neglected Source of Food." "To the native Indians of
California," he says, "the acorn is, and always has been, the staff of
life, furnishing the material for their daily mush and bread." He
describes the process of gathering and storing them, shelling, drying,
grinding the kernels, leaching out the bitter tannic acid, and preparing
the acorn meal in various ways for food. In eastern North America,
several species of acorns were somewhat similarly used, including those
of the live oaks of our southern states. The Spaniards of Florida
sometimes toasted them and used them as a substitute for chocolate or
coffee. Chinkapins were used for food by the earliest English colonists.
They are mentioned by Herriot, the historian of Sir Walter Raleigh's
colony at Roanoke. In addition to these, the early colonists learned to
eat the so-called "water-chinkapins", which are fruits of the beautiful
golden-flowered American lotus, _Nelumbo lutea_, a plant closely allied
to the sacred l