THE WALNUT. 209 



procure, and years afterwards sold it at a greatly ad- 

 vanced price. In the year 1720 an act was passed in 

 France to prevent the exportation of walnut timber, and 

 this led to the planting of these trees more extensively 

 than at any previous date ; this practice has continued to 

 the present time, hence the immense revenue secured 

 from the exportation of these nuts-. The people of the 

 United States are good customers for the surplus stock 

 of Europe, and will probably so continue, until we wake 

 up to a sense of our folly of perpetually buying articles 

 that could be readily produced at home, and at a very 

 large profit. 



Persian Walnut in America. The date of the 

 first experiment in planting this nut. in this country is 

 now probably unknown, but the oldest tree that I have 

 -been able to find with anything like a satisfactory his- 

 tory, is still growing vigorously at Washington Heights, 

 on Manhattan Island, near 160th street and St. Nicholas 

 avenue. I gave a brief history of this noble monarch of 

 its race in the American Garden for September, 1888, 

 from which the following account is condensed: "In 

 1758 Eoger Morris, an English gentleman, built a spa- 

 cious mansion on his estate, at what, in later years, be- 

 came known as Washington Heights. His grounds 

 were well laid out for that time, and many rare foreign 

 trees and shrubs planted, among them several, as then 

 called, English walnuts. Whether these trees were 

 raised from the nuts, or plants of some size imported, is 

 not now known. Mr. Morris may have procured the 

 seedlings from the Prince Nursery, Flushing, L. I., for 

 this famous garden was established in 1713, or forty-five 

 years previous to the building of the Morris mansion 

 and the planting of the grounds about it. 



"At that period no one doubted the hardiness of the 

 so-called English walnut in America, and as most of the 

 nuts and trees procured for planting came from accli- 

 14 



