THE WALNUT OUR NATIONAL TREE? 



463 



FRENCH FIFTEENTH CENTURY DOORS OF CARVED WALNUT, ILLUSTRAT- 

 ING THE WIDE RECOGNITION OF THE VIRTUES OF WALNUT EVEN AT 

 THIS EARLY DATE 



York; the value of its wood was early recognized and 

 used by the settlers for rails, buildings, furniture and 

 rifle stocks. 



It was cut out far in advance of other timber, but 

 up to 1850 it was fairly abundant. From 1850 to 1875 

 it was widely used and much of the best timber was 

 cut in the then accessible regions. From 1875 to 1900 

 the production of walnut dropped slowly from 

 125,000,000 feet a year to about 50,000,000 feet 

 yearly. 



Since 1900 the annual figure has remained 

 about 50,000,000 feet, until the Great War, 

 which brought out an average of nearly 100,000,- 

 000 feet per year between 1914 and 1918. To 

 be sure, American consumption of walnut drop- 

 ped steadily from 1875 t0 I 9> Dut the foreign 

 market for walnut increased correspondingly. 



Walnut has found its principal foreign markets 

 in Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, 

 Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Holland, Spain and 

 Italy England and Germany being heretofore 

 the principal markets. For twenty years prior 

 to the outbreak of the World War, Germany 

 had been importing walnut logs from this coun- 

 try for veneer, but it is now a well-known fact 

 that at least a great part of this material was 

 manufactured into a reserve store of gunstocks. 



Some twenty years ago the logging of the wal- 

 nut became different from that of other woods. 



This tree had always been a favorite and had 

 been preserved and planted all over the coun- 

 try. As a result, there were millions and mil- 



lions of trees scattered over the farming sections 

 of the country. 



A practice grew up of collecting logs at a 

 convenient shipping point from the surround- 

 ing country. Trees would get old and die, be 

 struck by lightning, or the owner be in need of 

 ready cash ; so walnut trees could always be 

 bought. Since 1900 this practice has increased, 

 until today the greater part of the walnut pro- 

 duced is picked up, a tree here and a tree there, 

 and shipped to the mills. During the war it was 

 this system which made it possible to supply the 

 United States and Allied Governments with the 

 countless millions of feet for gunstocks and air- 

 plane propellers. 



The results were a revelation even to the ex- 

 perienced walnut men and to forestry experts. 

 It was discovered that a steady walnut produc- 

 tion could be maintained almost indefinitely, the 

 demands of the war scarcely scratching this 

 source of supply. 



The forests formerly contained some magnifi- 

 cent specimens of this splendid tree. Even 

 within the last few years specimens have been 

 cut measuring five and six feet in diameter. 

 Many years ago there was standing in Floyd 

 County, West Virginia, a tree seven feet in diameter, 

 while in Letcher County there was a rather short bodied 

 walnut nearly nine feet in diameter. A great many 

 trees averaging from four to six feet on the stump came 

 down the Big Sandy River to move on the Ohio and 

 were exported during the period between 1870 and 1890. 

 The average forest growth, however, was from twelve 



EARLY AMERICAN HOMEMADE WRITING DESK OF WALNUT. THIS PIECE 

 WAS PROBABLY WROUGHT BY THE GRANDFATHER OF THE FAMILY AND 

 SO VENERATED AND APPRECIATED AS A REAL HEIRLOOM BY THE 

 YOUNGER GENERATION 



