The Walnuts and the Hickories 



the important arts of dyeing and tanning. The fruit is a food, and 

 yields a valuable oil. The wood is one of the most useful and 

 most elegant. 



The growth of the black walnut is rapid and sure from the 

 seed. Nuts gathered in the autumn should be stratified in gravel 

 over winter, and planted next spring. The way to restore what 

 we have lost is to plant walnuts wherever there is a place suitable 

 for such a tree. 



The Walnut (/. rupesiris, Engelm.) of the far Southwest 

 grows on canon sides and stream borders, climbing the mountains 

 to an elevation of 6,000 feet a shrub in the high semi-arid 

 regions, a spreading tree where its thirsty roots can find water in 

 unfailing supply. The limbs are covered with white bark, and 

 the twigs are cottony. This makes the leafless tree a striking 

 and beautiful feature of winter landscapes, especially where there 

 is a dark background. 



The little nuts have deeply grooved and very thick shells, but 

 the Indians and Mexicans are glad to take trouble to get at the 

 sweet kernels within. The hard shell is, however, a commercial 

 impediment. The wood is rich dark brown in colour and takes a 

 satiny polish; but it is weak and coarse grained, and is not im- 

 portant in the lumber trade. 



The California Walnut {J. Calijornica, Wats.) has small, 

 sweet, thin-shelled nuts, faintly creased and somewhat flattened 

 at each end. The tree is graceful and symmetrical, with luxuriant 

 foliage, of cheerful light green. It grows to medium height on the 

 bottom lands of the coast region from the lower course of the 

 Sacramento River to the foothills of the San Bernardino Moun- 

 tains, where it climbs to an elevation of 3,000 feet and becomes 

 a stunted shrub. 



The chief value of this tree is that it serves as a hardy stock 

 for the cultivated /. regia, and as such has extended nut culture 

 north to central California. Seedlings of the native tree are root 

 grafted with cions of French varieties, and old trees are success- 

 fully top grafted. Independent of this signal service to horti- 

 culture, the California walnut is a fine ornamental and nut tree. 



The English or Persian Walnut (Juglans regia, Linn.) a 

 royal tree and nut indeed! is the walnut of classical literature, 

 beloved of gods and men. From the hillsides of Persia and the 

 regions far East this species was carried into southern Europe, 



130 



