The Broad Ax

Made-Oper Bush Nut Can Be Easily Opened

For many years the delicious bush nut of Australia, known variously as the Australian, Queensland and polar nut, has baffled horticulturists. It had a rare and delicate flavor, was a food for an epicure, but its shell was about the hardest known to mankind.

The size of a small pigeon's egg, brown and shiny, one might jump on it and hammer it with one's heel without leaving the faintest impression save on the heel. Something in the nature of a blacksmith's hammer and anvil was required to smash the shell.

After years of disappointing experiments in various parts of the world official word comes that J. S. Waldron, who lives on the south coast of New South Wales, has produced a thin-shelled bush nut. Several plant generations have demonstrated the success of the new nut, according to the Queensland government botanist and the director of fruit culture, who inspected the Waldron farm.

The made-over bush nut is said to retain the flavor and the indestructible shell has been replaced by one that may be opened with reasonable facility.—Detroit News.