274 OTJE COMMON FETJITS. 



causing headache and other ill effects. This, however, 

 is flatly contradicted by Evelyn, who held the Walnut in 

 peculiar honour, and after asserting that it was doubtless 

 looked on as a symbol consecrated to marriage, for the 

 amiable reason that it protected its offspring in such 

 manifold ways alluding to the coverings of the nut de- 

 clares further that so far. from causing headache, it is 

 rather a specific against it ; while to show the fallacy of 

 the other part of the libel, he adduces Burgundy as an 

 instance where these trees may be seen standing amid 

 thriving crops of wheat. Noisette, on the other hand, 

 says that " everybody knows one cannot long bear the 

 influence of its leaves without headache, if at all nervous 

 or delicate," and that "vegetation never prospers near 

 it ; " admitting though that this may be due to its large 

 leaves shutting out the light, instead of to any peculiar 

 emanation from it. Other later writers seem also rather 

 to side with the classical authority upon the subject as to 

 the influence of the tree being noxious, but qualify the 

 verdict by agreeing that whatever injurious effects may 

 be produced by it, arise, in all probability, chiefly from 

 the decaying leaves, and that if these be carefully removed 

 as they fall, no harm will then ensue. Travellers on the 

 Continent, especially in Germany, have many opportu- 

 nities of testing whether its shade ought to be shunned, 

 though it would sometimes be no easy matter to avoid it, 

 since it is often found bordering the road for many miles ; 

 and in the neighbourhood of Frankfort it was held in 

 such special esteem that the young farmers there were 

 formerly not allowed to marry until they could produce 

 a certificate showing that they had planted a certain 

 number of these trees. They are doubly valuable on 

 account of the timber, the wood being noted both for 

 beauty and durability, and combining so many good qua- 

 lities softness, flexibility, easiness to work, fine colour, 

 and elegant veining, that from the humblest sabotier to 

 the most artistic wood-carver there is no workman who 

 does not gladly use it ; and also for the nuts, the latter 

 perhaps chiefly on account of the oil expressed from them, 

 which for the special purposes of the painter and copper- 



