NUT. The term nut is applied to that class of fruit which consists generally of a single kernel enclosed in a hard shell. Botanically speaking, nuts are one-celled fruits with hardened pericarps, more or less enveloped in a cupule or cup, formed by the aggregation of the bracts. In commerce, however, the term has a wider application and embraces many fruits having hard woody indehiscent shells or coverings without reference to their enclosed seeds or kernels, besides leguminous pods, and even tuberous roots. A great number of nuts enter into commerce for various purposes, principally as articles of food or sources of oil, and for several ornamental and useful purposes. For the most part the edible nuts are very rich in oil, with only a small percentage of the other carbohydrates, starch, sugar, l fcc., and they also contain a large proportion of nitrogenous constituents. Thus possessing rich nutrient principles in a highly-concentrated form, nuts are by themselves rather difficult of digestion, and the liability of many of them to become rancid is also a source of danger and a hindrance to their free use. Oleaginous nuts used for food are likewise employed more or less as sources of oil, but on the other hand there are many oil-nuts of commercial importance not embraced in the list of edible nuts. The following is an alphabetical enumeration of the more important nuts, and of products passing under that name, used either as articles of food or as sources of oil :— [table] [table]

There remain to be enumerated a number of nuts of commercial value for turnery and ornamental purposes, foτ medicinal use, and for several miscellaneous applications in the arts. These include :— [table]...

NUTATION. See Astronomy, vol. ii. pp. 794-5.

NUTCRACKER, the name given by Edwards in 1758 {Gleanings, No. 240) to a bird which had hitherto borne no English appellation, though described in 1544 by Turner, who, meeting with it in the Rhaetic Alps, where it was called “Nousbrecher” (hodie “Nussbrecher ”), translated that term into Latin as Nucifraga. In 1555 Gesner figured it and conferred upon it another designation, 0aryocatactes. It is the Corvus caryocatactes of Linnaeus and the Nucifraga caryocatactes of modern ornithology. Willughby and Ray obtained it on the road from Vienna to Venice as they crossed what must have been the Sömmerring Pass, 26th September 1663. The first known to have occurred in Britain was, according to Pennant, shot at Mostyn in Flintshire, 5th October 1753, and about fifteen more examples have since been procured, and others seen, in the island. In further continuation of the particulars already given (Crow, vol. vi. p. 618), it may here be stated that a careful monograph of the species by the Ritter Victor von Tschusi-Schmidhoffen was printed at Dresden in 1874 with the title of Der Tannenheher, which is one of its many German names. Contrary to what was for many years believed, the nest of the Nutcracker seems to be invariably built on the bough of a tree, some 20 feet from the ground, and is a comparatively large structure of sticks, lined with grass. The eggs are of a very pale bluish-green, sometimes nearly spotless, but usually more or less freckled with pale olive or ash-colour. The chief food of the Nutcracker, though it at times searches for insects on the ground, appears to be the seeds of various conifers, which it extracts as it holds the cones in its foot, and it has been questioned whether the bird has the faculty of cracking nuts—properly so called—with its ...

NUTHATCH, in older English Nuthack, from its habit of hacking or chipping nuts, which it cleverly fixes, as though in a vice, in a chink or crevice of the bark of a tree, and then hammers them with the point of its bill till the shell is broken. This bird was long thought to be the Sittα europaea of Linnaeus; but that is now admitted to be the northern form, with the lower parts white, and its buff-breasted representative in central, southern, and western Europe, including England, is known as Sitta caesia. It is not found in Ireland, and in Scotland its appearance is merely accidental. Without being very plentiful anywhere, it is generally distributed in suitable localities throughout its range—those localities being such as afford it a sufficient supply of food, consisting during the greater part of the year of insects, which it diligently seeks on the boles and larger limbs of old trees; but in autumn and winter it feeds on nuts, beech-mast, the stones of yew-berries, and hard seeds. Being of a bold disposition, and the trees favouring its mode of life often growing near houses, it will become on slight encouragement familiar with men; and its neat attire of ash-grey and warm buff, together with its sprightly gestures, render it an attractive visitor. It generally makes its nest in a hollow branch, plastering up the opening with clay, leaving only a circular hole just large enough to afford entrance and exit; and the interior contains a bed of dry leaves or the filmy flakes of the inner bark of a fir or cedar, on which the eggs are laid. In the Levant occurs another species, S. syriaca, with somewhat different habits, as it haunts rocks rather than trees; and four or five representatives of the European arboreal species have their respective ranges from Asia Minor ...

NUTMEG. The spice known in commerce under this name is the kernel of the seed of Myristica fragrans, Houtt., a dioecious evergreen tree, about 50 to 60 feet high, found wild in the Banda Islands and a few of the neighbouring islands, extending to New Guinea but not to the Philippines. Nutmeg and mace are almost exclusively obtained from the Banda Islands, although the cultivation has been attempted with varying success in Singapore, Penang, Bengal, Réunion, Brazil, French Guiana, and the West Indies. The trees yield fruit in eight years after sowing the seed, reach their prime in twenty-five years, and bear for sixty years or longer. Almost the whole surface of the Banda Islands is planted with nutmeg trees, which thrive under the shade of the lofty Canarium commune. The light volcanic soil, shade, and excessive moisture of these islands, where it rains more or less during the whole year, seem exactly to suit the requirements of the nutmeg tree. In Bencoolen the tree bears all the year round, but the chief harvest takes place in the later months of the year, and a smaller one in April, May, and June. In the Banda Islands the fruits are collected in small neatly-made oval baskets at the end of a bamboo, which prevents bruising, the baskets being open for half their length on one side and furnished with a couple of small prongs projecting from the top, by which the fruit-stalk is broken, the fruit falling into the basket. The ripe fruit is about 2 inches in diameter, of a rounded pear-shape, and when mature splits into two halves, exposing a crimson arillus surrounding a single seed. When the fruit is collected the pericarp is first removed; then the arillus is carefully stripped off and dried, in which state it forms the mace of commerce. The seed consists of a thin ...