JUGLANDACE^. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



123 



durable 



The wood of Jiiglans nigra is heavy, hard, strong, rather coarse-grained, easily worked, and very 



; it contains numerous large irregularly distributed open ducts and 



contact with the soil 



many thin obscure medullary rays. It is rich dark brown, with a satiny surface susceptible of receiving 

 a beautiful polish, and thin light-colored sapwood composed of ten to twenty layers of annual growth. 

 The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.6115, a cubic foot weighing 38.11 pounds. It is 



gely 



in cabinet-making, in the interior finish of houses, for gunstocks and coffins, and in boat 



d ship building; its value was recognized by the early colonists, and when William Strachey visited 



Virginia in 1610 black walnut was already sent to the mother country,^ and 



of 



commercial importance 



The 



which were valued by the 



Indians of the Mississippi Basin,^ are still gathered 



for 



domestic use, and are sometimes offered for sale in the markets of western and southern cities, although 

 the kernel, which is sweet and has a pleasant flavor while fresh, soon becomes rancid ; the husks are 

 used for dyeing. 



Introduced into Europe about the middle of the seventeenth century ^ by the younger Tradescant,^ 

 Jiiglans nigra was first described by Parkinson in the Theatrwn Botanicum^ A tree in the garden 

 of the Bishop of London produced fruit before 1687.^ 



The Black Walnut is frequently used as an ornamental tree in the parks of the United States and 

 of central Europe, and during the last twenty years many plantations of it have been made in the United 

 States and Canada ^ in the hope of replacing by cultivation the wasted stores of walnut timber which 

 once abounded in the forests of North America. As an ornamental tree the Black Walnut, with its 

 massive trunk and handsome shapely head of beautiful foliage, is surpassed in beauty by few other 

 inhabitants of the American forest, although the preference of the Fall Web-worm for its leaves and its 

 early defoliation somewhat detract from its value as an ornamental tree for parks and pleasure-grounds.^ 



ber-dealers, penetrating into the most remote and inaccessible parts rendre plus utiles.'' (Le Page du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisianey 

 of the country, have bought up often singly and at merely nominal ii. 25.) 



Walnut 



^ Alton, HorL Kexo, iii. 360. — Loudon, Arb. Brit iii. 1435, f. 



" Of walnutts there be three kindes, the black walnutt which 1260, t. 



is returned home yearly by all shipping from thence, and yields 

 good profitt, for yt is well bought up to make waynscott tables, cub- 

 bardes, chaires, and stooles, of a delicate grayne and cuUour like Car, i. 67, t. 67. 



* See i. 20. 



^ Nux juglans nigra Virginiensis, 1414. — Catesby, Nat, Hist, 



ebonie, and not subject to the worme ; the fruict of this is little, yt 



Nux juglans Virginiana nigra^ Hermann, Cat. Hort, Lugd,'Bat. 



is thinne shelled, and the karnell bitter." (The Historic of Travaile 452, t. — Boerhaave, Ind, Alt, Hort, Lugd. Bat, ii, 175. 



into Virginia Britannia, ed. Major, 129.) 



Juglans foliolis lanceolatis tomentosis acute serrratis : superioribus 



i 



* The Walnut which is divers, some bearing square nuts, others minoribus, Linnseus, Hort. Cliff, 449. — Royen, FL Leyd, Prodr, 82. 



like ours, but smaller : there is likewise black Walnut of precious 

 use for Tables, Cabinets, and the like." (Josselyn, An Account of 

 Two Voyages to New England, 69.) 



'-* " II en est de trfes-gros, dont le bois est presque aussi noir que 

 I'dbene ; mais il a ses pores trfes ouverts. Leur fruit avec son 

 bois est de la grosseur d'un ceuf de poule; la coque en est tr^s- 



® See Hermann, L c. 



■^ See Joly, Rep, Montreal Horticultural and Fruit Growers^ Asso- 

 ciation, 1880, 23. — Proc, Am, Forestry Congress, 1885, 79. 



Although the young cultivated trees grow rapidly, trees in the 



girth of trunk. 



W 



raboteuse, sans ensures, & si dur, qu'il faut un marteau pour la under the most favorable conditions in the best alluvial soil, to 



La chair est envelopp^e d'un bois si fort, que quoi-qu'elle a size really valuable for timber. The log specimen in the Jesup 



casser. 



soit d'un tr^s-bon gout, la difficult^ de les tirer en fait perdre I'en- 



Woods 



vie : cependant les Naturels en font du pain. Comme lis venoient Natural History, New York, grown in Missouri, has a trimk-diame- 

 en ramasser sur ma Concession, oh j'en avois un Bois de Haute- ter of twenty-six inches inside the bark, and shows one himdred 



arpens 



and ninety-two layers of annual growth. 



Walnut flourishes 



quelle Industrie ils parvenoient k detacher cette chair de son bois. ^ As an ornamental tree the Black 



Je les vis, apr^s avoir cassd & pild les noix, les mettre dans de north as Montreal and Quebec ; and on the Atlantic coast it is 



oil ils jetterent beaucoup d'eau; ils frotterent hardy as far north at least as eastern Massachusetts. A specimen 



vaisseaux 



ensuite cette espece de farine, & la manierent longtems entre leurs standing on the estate of Mr. Peter C. Brooks of West Medford, 



mains de sorte que le bois & I'huile de la noix, qui est tr^s-abon- Massachusetts, is believed to be from one hundi-ed and fifty to one 



grais- hundred and seventy-five years old. This noble tree is probably 



qu'en the largest in New England; in 1888 it had a trunk-circumference 



fruit, vinrent au-dessus de I'eau, & la chair 



;umer 



sde tomba au fond par son propre poids. H est h pr^ 



ffreffant ces arbres avec du Noyer de France, on parviendroit h les of thirteen feet six and one half inches at five feet above the sur- 



