From the number on the ground under the two trees up the street, if you found just one maybe moved by an animal or kid ? I'm guessing the early ones that fall off in july and august have no nut in them ? Now I'm gonna hafta pick a couple of the bigger ones up and see what is inside. Pretty sure they are hickories from the leaf shape in the trees above where they are on the ground. Plus if they were any good an animal would have harvested them already I'd think.
My guess is animal. No kids around here...closest neighbors are about 300' through the woods and a swampy area.
That's a black walnut. When they sit and dry for a while, that's exactly what the shell looks like. Used to have a basket of them next to the fireplace when I was a kid, with a block of wood and a cross-pein hammer for cracking them open.
A few years back there was a company buying black walnuts. I talked to the guy that was running one of the drop off sites and he said they were being ground up to be used in sand(walnut)blasters.
