THE WALNUT. 207 



with their usual habit of compounding names, call it 

 ivalnuss-baum or walnut tree. 



Joannis De Loureiro, in his work on the plants of 

 China, " Flora Cochinchinensis," published in 1790, 

 claims that this Persian walnut is also a native of the 

 northern provinces of China, with two other species 

 which he describes (p. 573), adding, however, that one 

 of these is cultivated in Cochin China, and the other is 

 found wild in the mountains. 



The wild form of this world-wide-famous nut is, 

 doubtless, quite different from the varieties with which 

 we are familiar, for two thousand years or more of con- 

 tinuous cultivation and selections have greatly changed 

 the character of these nuts, as well as the habit of the 

 trees. The nuts from the wild trees are said to have a 

 rather thick shell, and to be much smaller than the best of 

 the improved cultivated varieties, or very like those we 

 now obtain in China and Japan. The Persian walnut, 

 in its many varieties, has been planted almost every- 

 where in Europe as far north as Warsaw, but does not 

 appear to have run wild and become naturalized, as with 

 many other kinds of fruit and forest trees. In Great 

 Britain it has probably been cultivated ever since the 

 invasion of the country by the Eomans, although a 

 much later date is named by some of our modern horti- 

 cultural authorities. Dodoens (1552), Gerarde (1597), 

 Parkinson (1629), and other of our early authors of 

 works on cultivated plants, speak of the Persian walnut 

 as common in various countries of Europe, Great Britain 

 included. John Evelyn, in his "Sylva" (1664), says: 

 "In Burgundy, walnut trees abound where they stand, 

 in the meadows of goodly lands, at sixty and a hundred 

 feet distance, and so far as hurting the crop, they are 

 looked upon as great preservers, keeping the ground 

 warm, nor do the roots hinder the plow." Evelyn, no 

 doubt, had read what Pliny had said on this point, viz. : 



