Butternut Trees

 BUTTERNUTS

I remember so well arriving in Vermont as a five-year-old and finding a world that was exciting, challenging, and dramatically different than Rye and Port Chester NY where various members of my family resided. We moved next door to a century-old dairy farm and the three farm ladies who lived there were forever introducing my sister and me to all sorts of new and unusual experiences. 

During our first full fall in Vermont, we learned about butternuts, and we filled bushel baskets full of the nuts from those trees....and in that process got our hands all browned up and sticky from the husks. The ladies lugged the heavy baskets upstairs into the back attic of the farmhouse where the nuts were spread out to dry. They showed us how to crack the previous years' nuts which had cured. It was several years later before we could successfully crack nuts and not fingers but we learned early on how delicious the nut meats were and how Vermonters loved them with their maple candies.

Since those days in the 50s, butternuts have declined in Vermont to the point that you hardly see any trees let alone a good supply of nuts. In 2006, when we bought that land that today is Vermont Flower Farm, we had 9 butternut trees growing along the Winooski River. This summer the last of those died.

Here's an article that was written by Chittenden County Vermont's Forester, Ethan Tapper. It does a good job explaining butternuts. I keep hoping someone will hybridize a stronger butternut so we don't lose this wonderful tree (beautiful wood) and its nuts.

https://mcusercontent.com/58398f7a782118e355bf99377/files/37c05cc5-a341-5180-e1ed-03f033634d53/Butternut_March_2022.01.pdf