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Black Walnut Tree Value
Black Walnut Trees are one of the fastest growing and highest valued hardwood species. Black walnut trees are highly prized for their dark-colored heartwood. They are heavy and strong, yet easily split and worked. Black walnut tree wood is valued for the absolutely wonderful cabinet wood it produces it has been used for gun stocks, furniture, flooring, paddles, coffins, and a variety of other woodworking products.
Yet the black walnut tree doesn't have great commercial value in terms of nut production. The shells of the black walnut tree are harder than those of the Persian walnut, which makes it more difficult to produce enough nut·meat to make processing commercially viable.
Early pioneers in search of homesteading land looked for black walnut trees, knowing that they they require a rich, well-drained loam soil composed of sand, silt, clay, and organic matter. Land that grew black walnut trees would be fertile and good place to settle. As was common for the times, a house owned by Abe Lincoln was built with braced-frame oak construction but the exterior and interior trim, doors, siding, and shingles were all black walnut.
The leaves of the black walnut tree yellowish-green when they unfurl in late spring and remain so until they turn a dull yellow in the fall. They have fuzzy undersides and a noticeable odor when bruised. Male and female flowers grow on the same tree. Though the female flowers are inconspicuous, the male's appear as 4-inch long yellow-green spikes in late spring just as the leaves emerge. By late summer hard-shelled nuts about 2 inches in diameter form inside protective husks. Initially green, the husks turn black as they mature, then break open to release the hard, ridged nut within. The very desirable nut meat is sweet, oily, and high in protein.
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