OUTDOORS: MANNA OF THE OAKS

The oaks.

Ancient civilizations worshiped them. Earlier navies sailed in warships built of their enduring timbers. Countless animal species and, until relatively recent times, numerous human cultures have feasted or starved based on the abundance of their fruits.

Men and beasts alike historically have found importance in their lives for the trees of the Quercus genus, some 400 species of oaks worldwide.

English oaks were sacred to the Druids, among others, and were revered for their towering strength and longevity. Some cultures viewed oaks as the original tree, the daddy, as it were, of all other trees.

To many ancients, however, oaks were far more than just sacramental vegetation. In northern Europe, oaks were providers of a staple food -- acorns. Until the latter part of the Middle Ages, acorns were a basic element in the European diet. They were gathered in the wild, but as civilization spread and began to take a toll on the forest, oaks were cultivated specifically for the acorn crop they could provide.

Other close-to-nature civilizations relied heavily on acorns as a food source. Native Americans were in large part supported by autumn acorn crops.

Acorns, incidentally, rank right up there with many so-called health foods in terms of nourishment. They are high in protein and B vitamins, but low in fat. The element that keeps them from being a popular item on the menus of "civilized" cultures is that they don't taste very good.

Acorns from the family of oaks classified as white oaks are the best eating, often referred to as "sweet" acorns. In reality, they're quite bland. On the other side are those in the red oak group. They are referred to as "bitter" acorns, and that description is quite accurate.

All acorns are high in tannic acid content, and the tannins in the nut meat give off a bitter taste. Acorns of the white oak group simply have less tannic acid than those of the red oak group.

The white oak group includes the species of white, chestnut, chinkapin, post, swamp white, swamp chestnut, overcup and bur oaks. The red oak group, meanwhile, embraces the northern and southern reds, black, willow, pin, blackjack, cherrybark, shumard, water and shingle oaks.

Ancient cultures knew how to make acorns, preferably those of the white oak group, palatable. They most often boiled whole or pulverized acorns, changing the water repeatedly until it grew clear instead of brown stained -- an indication that the tannin was leached out. Once free of the acid, the acorn meat often was ground into a sort of flour and used to bake bread, such as it was.

Everyone knows that a blind hog will find an acorn now and then. It's been repeated often enough. American settlers commonly fed their hogs -- both blind and sighted -- on acorns. Or, rather, they let their hogs run rampant in the woods and feed themselves on oak fruit.

In some backwoods areas, land values were partly calculated on the basis of how much hog feed in the form of acorns a section of forest could produce. Acorns equaled livestock production, hence, farmstead wealth.

Aside from porkers, many species of wildlife regard most acorns as manna from heaven. The tannins in raw acorns that trouble humans aren't a problem for most animals. Acorns aren't available year round, but when they ripen and begin falling in the autumn, a wide variety of creatures find a virtual buffet beneath the oaks.

Deer, turkey, squirrels, bear, raccoons, groundhogs, crows, quail, songbirds, chipmunks, mice -- a good percentage of the critters out there make heavy use of acorns.

The attraction of acorns for deer doesn't go unnoticed by deer hunters. By middle October or thereabouts, acorns begin to hit the ground in large numbers. That's an occasion in which whitetails switch from other food sources to an acorn-intensive diet. It's believed by many that deer will turn to acorns exclusively, disregarding other food source, when the oak fruit -- particularly white oak acorns -- is dropped.

During years of heavy acorn crops -- and this year is stacking up to be one -- deer hunting can be somewhat more difficult because a wealth of acorns in the woods can spread deer and make them less patterned in their travels. On the other hand, a dearth of acorns can make deer more dependent on fewer food sources and, thus, more predictable.

A single tree can put an impressive amount of wildlife food on the ground. Experts estimate that an average oak will produce something on the order of 5,000 acorns during a typical season, while larger, "bumper" corps can be expected every four or five years.

One study done on an especially productive oak in a natural area determined that the tree produced about 15,000 acorns in a single season. Of these, it was determined that 83 percent were eaten by animals. Another 6 percent were eaten or destroyed by insects.

Some 10 percent of the crop was estimated as naturally imperfect, flawed from the start. Only 1 percent of the acorns actually ended up as new oak sprouts.

Autumn is celebrated as the time of harvest, when farmers are reaping the rewards of their efforts from fields. A harvest of as much or more significance takes place at the same time in the forests and woodlots when the oaks unload their abundance. Most of the consumers of the acorn crop are furred or feathered, but it's a vital picking just the same.

Steve Vantreese is outdoors editor of The Paducah Sun.