204: THE OLD AND REMARKABLE 



in spring, and the early shedding of its graceful light green 

 pinnate leaves, which fall at the earliest approach of the 

 first autumnal frosts in our latitude. It does not admit of being 

 pruned at all when of any size ; this operation, if necessary, 

 should only be done when the tree is quite young, and never 

 close to the main stem. Such treatment would be most injurious 

 to the tree, and its pernicious effects are observable in old trees 

 which have come under our notice in Scotland, — such a process 

 of close-pruniug having invariably produced decay more or less 

 at the lower edge of tlie wound, caused doubtless by the wood 

 being naturally capable only of slow cicatrisation, and also 

 from the soft loose texture of the young wood of a tree which 

 otherwise, when allowed to mature and ripen, produces a timber 

 of close-grained quality, of beautifully coloured and veined 

 appearance, and of the very finest quality for all artistic and 

 ornamental constructive purposes or for internal decoration and 

 furniture. 



Evelyn states that it had been observed by a friend of his that 

 the " sap of the walnut tree rises and descends with the sun's 

 diurnal course (while it visibly slackens in the night), and more 

 plentifully at the root on the south side, though those roots cut 

 on the north side were larger and less distant from the trunk of 

 the tree, and that they not only distilled from the ends which 

 were next the stem, but from those that were cut off and 

 separated," and which, he observes, " does not happen in birch, 

 or any other sap-yielding tree.""^ It is a pity the \vorthy and 

 observant arborist does not tell us more of the details of the 

 experiments and observations by which he arrived at this 

 conclusion regarding this relation between the sun's diurnal 

 course and the flow of sap in the walnut tree, which he seems 

 to point to as unique. May it not have rather been, or be 

 perhaps, due to lunar influence, if such a phenomenon, as he 

 alleges, exists at all, and afford inquiry, or fair field foi' investiga- 

 tion into a matter of the most profound interest in the economy 

 of the vegetable kingdom and arboricultural world, viz., the 

 periodiciti/ of the rise and fall of sap in trees throughout the 

 various periods of the moon's growth and decline in all months 

 of the year, — a function probably which, if better understood 

 and investigated, may be found to correspond to a similar law 

 in the animal kingdom for keeping alive and periodically revivi- 

 fying and quickening the latent forces of nature. 



Many curious old and superstitious practices and ideas pre- 

 vailed in the last century regarding the walnut tree. These 

 were particularly common in Germany and in other countries 

 of the continent of Europe. In Erankfort and Hanau in 



* Evelyn's Sylva (Hunter), voL i. book i. p. 171. 



