196 THE OLD AND REMARKABLE 



THE OLD AND EEMAEKABLE WALNUT TREES IX 



SCOTLAND. 



By Egbert Hutchison of Carlowrie. 



[Premium — Five Sovereigns.'] 



Whatever difference of opinion may exist in the minds of 

 arboriculturists as to the indigenous nature of some other 

 species of hard-wooded trees to Scotland, or even to Britain, 

 there can be no doubt regarding the walnut having been an 

 importation and a foreign acquisition to our Sylva. Old and 

 large examples at the present day are few in number, and, like 

 the Spanish chestnuts,— with which in point of introduction 

 the walnut seems to be coeval, — are generally found around 

 ruined monastic buildings and foundations, or adjoining the 

 castellated remains of the strongholds of feudal barons of the 

 Middle Ages, in sites which appear to have been carefully 

 selected, with due regard to prominence and yet shelter, 

 where the cherished nut tecded with care, and probably the 

 memento of some distant pilgrimage, might remind the old 

 monk of some foreign shrine, or recall to the memory of the 

 gallant knight-errant in after years in his native land, the 

 grateful shade and refreshing fruit of its parent tree, under 

 whose umbrageous branches he had rested after the toils of the 

 battle-field. Some authorities ascribe the introduction of the 

 walnut to the Eomans during their occupation of Britain, but 

 however this theory may hold good as regards the southern 

 parts of England, it cannot be supported by either fact or 

 inference, if we take the oldest survivors in Scotland as living 

 witnesses, or notice the total absence of all traces of any remains, 

 or even of later specimens existing at or near to any Koman 

 station in Scotland. 



Few, if any, walnuts appear to have existed in this country, 

 north of the Tweed, earlier than about the year 1600. It is a 

 curious fact, that Dr Walker, who wrote his Catalogue after 

 about foity years of patient compilation, mentions only four 

 " remarkable " walnut trees in Scotland, and Sir Thomas Dick 

 Lauder in 1826 adds none to the list which the old Professor 

 had collected. The cause of this scarcity of good examples 

 existing in Scotland about the beginning of the century will be 

 afterwards referred to, and probable reasons assigned for it, but 

 meantime, we may glance at these old walnuts noticed and 

 recorded by Walker, and endeavour to identify any of them at 

 the present day, and notice their growths and condition. It 

 should be observed also, that the otherwise very fastidious 

 arborist and collector Dr Walker condescends to notice in his 



