742 PRACTICE OF GARDENING. Part III. 



4730. To have a regular succession of strawberries throughout the autumnal inonths. This is commonly 

 done by means of th! wood and alpine species, and their varieties. Garmer thinks it may be accomplished 

 bv late planting; for example, of Wilmot's late scarlet, or the common scarlet about May. He has 

 Planted runners of the roseberry on the 1st of July, and gathered fruit or. the /th of September. {Hort. 

 T,-am iv >4S2 ) Williams cultivates the alpine for this purpose. " Early in the month of May, when 

 thev are in flower, he cuts awav all the blossoms, preserving the leaves uninjured ; this is again repeated 

 at the end of the month. Towards the middle or end of June more blossoms appear, and the plants afford 

 flowers and fruit, all the latter part of the summer, and till cut off by the autumnal frosts. If the first 

 blossoms were not removed,-the principal crop of alpines would be ripe at the time the larger strawberries 

 are inTeason, and consequently of little worth "; but by this mode of culture they come into bearing in the 

 latter part of the summer, just" at the time the other kinds^ are over. {Hort. 1 rans. v. za.) 



4731. For forcing the strawberry, see Chap. VII, Sect. VIII. 



Sect. IV. Nuts. 



4732. Among nuts the most useful in this country is the walnut, both for the dessert 

 and pickling ; the filbert is also a very useful fruit ; chestnuts are wholesome and nutri- 

 tive, and form, in Spain and Italy, an important article of human food. 



Subsect. 1. Walnut. — Juglans regia, L. (Lam. ill. 781.) Moncec. Polyan. L. and 

 Terebintaceee, J. Noyer, Fr. ; Walnnssbaum, Ger. ; and Nod, Ital. 



4733. The walnut is a large and lofty tree, with spreading boughs, and pinnate leaves, 

 having a very strona; aromatic odor. The male flowers come in subterminating aments ; 

 the females scattered two or three together in close sessile buds on the young wood near 

 the extremities of the branches. The fruit is an ovate, coriaceous, smooth drupe, enclosing 

 an irregularly grooved nut, which contains a four-lobed oily eatable kernel, with an irre- 

 gular knobbed surface, and covered with a yellow skin. The flowers are produced in 

 the end of April and beginning of May, and the fruit ripens in September and October. 

 It is a native of Persia and the south side of Caucasus ; but it is supposed to have been 

 introduced here from France, and called gaul-nut, before 1562. 



4734. Use. The kernel, when ripe, is in esteem at the dessert; and the fruit whole, 

 in a green state, before the stone hardens, is much used for pickling. An oil which 

 supplfes the place of that of almonds, is expressed from the kernel in France. In Spain 

 they strew the gratings of old and hard nuts, first peeled, into their tarts and other meats. 

 The leaves strewed on the ground and left there annoy worms ; or macerated in warm 

 water, afford a liquor which, from its bitterness, may effect their death. The unripe 

 fruit is used in medicine for the same purpose. Pliny says, " the more walnuts one eats, 

 with the more ease will he drive worms out of his stomach." The timber is used in this 

 country for gun-stocks, being lighter in proportion to its strength and elasticity than any 

 other. It is almost exclusively used in cabinet-work in most parts of the continent. 

 The young timber is held to make the finest-colored work, but the old to be finer varie- 

 gated for ornament. 



4735. Varieties. Those commonly cultivated for their fruits are — 



The round early oval I Highflyer of Thetford, the best variety kno*rn. 



Double larije French 



Tender-shelled, and thick-shelled I 



4736 Propagation. It has generally been propagated from the nut ; and this mode is recommended 



bv Miller and Forsvth ; probably from their not having known that the tree may be continued by inocu- 



lation ^practised successfully by Knight. Inarching this tree was long ago recommended by Boutcher 



who says, " he found the fruit in this way produced in one third of the time necessary for plants raised 



ft %Ju£ftU; " having planted, in the spring of 1799, some walnut-trees of two years old in garden- 

 pots raised them up to the bearing branches of an old walnut-tree, and grafted them, by approach, with 

 Ears of the bearing branches of the old tree. An union took place during the summer, and in the 

 autumn the grafts were detached from the parent stock. The plants thus obtained were planted in a 

 nursery, andfwithout any peculiar care or management, produced both male and female blossoms in the 

 third Bucceedine swine 'and have since afforded blossoms every season." {Hort Trans i 61.) After 

 SeSSS 53 succeeded in propagating the walnut-tree from budding < The buds of trees^ 

 he observes, " of almost every species, succeed with most certainty when inserted in the shoots of the 

 same year's growth; but the walnut-tree appears to afford an exception ; possibly, in some measure, 

 De^auJe its bfdTcon'uin within themselves/in the spring, all the leaves which the tree bears in the fo - 

 lowing summer ; whence its annual shoots wholly cease to elongate soon after its budsunftddj ^all its 

 buds of each season are also, consequently, very nearly of the same age: and long before any ha*e 

 acquired the proper degree of maturity for being removed, the annual branches have ceased to grow 

 ?on Jer^or to Jroduce new foliage. To obviate the disadvantages arising from the preceding circumstances 

 I adopted means of retarding the period of the vegetation of the stocks, comparatively with that of 'the 

 bearing tree; and by these means I became partially successful There are at the base ot the annual 

 shoots°of the walnut and other trees, where those join the year-old wood many m » lu /f. b " d ^^^ n ar n e , 

 almost concealed in the bark, and which rarely or never vegetate, but in the event of the de s truc ion of 

 the large prominent buds which occupy the middle and opposite end of the annual wood By 'insert- 

 ing in each stock one of these minute buds, and one of the large and prominent kind I had the pleasure 

 t" find that the minute buds took freely, whilst the large all failed without a single exception This 

 experiment was repeated in the summer of 1815, upon two yearling stocks which grew in pot*, and had 

 been pUced during the spring and early part of the summer, in a shady situation under a north wal ; 

 ?vhence they were removed late in July to a forcing-house, and instantly budded These being suffered to 

 7emauiin the house during the following summer, produced from the small buds, shoots nearly three feet 

 loiTe terminating in large and perfect female blossoms, which necessarily proved abortive, as no male 

 hTofsoms^vere procurable at the early period in which ihe female blossoms appeared : but the early 

 Eation of such blossoms sufficiently proves that the habits of a bearing branch of the walnut-tree may 

 ^Transferred to a voung tree by budding, as well as by grafting by approach The most eligible situation 

 for SSi of buds°of this species of tree (and probably of others of similar habits) is near the ' summ.t 

 of the wood of the preceding year, and of course, very near the base of the annual shoot ; and it buds of 



