Mast (botany) some domestic animals consume. Mast is found in two forms. Mast is generated in large quantities during mast seeding events (or masting, mast events). Mast seeding is a population-level phenomenon that is hypothesized to be driven by economies of scale, weather, and resources. These pulses of resources drive ecosystem-level functions and dynamics. Tree species such as oak, hickory, and beech produce a hard mast—acorns, hickory nuts, and beechnuts. It has been traditional to turn pigs loose into forests to fatten on this form of mast. Other tree and shrub species produce a soft mast, such as raspberries, blueberries, and greenbriar.
Beech as sweet as a mild cabbage, though much softer in texture. The young leaves can be steeped in gin for several weeks, the liquor strained off and sweetened to give a light green/yellow liqueur called beech leaf noyau. In antiquity, the barks of beech tree were used by Indo-European people for writing-related purposes, especially in religious context. Beech wood tablets were a common writing material in Germanic societies before the development of paper. The Old English "bōc" and Old Norse "bók" both have the primary sense of "beech" but also a secondary sense of "book", and it is from "bōc"