THE WALNUT OUR NATIONAL TREE? 



469 



ANOTHER OF THE MANY BEAUTIFUL FIGURES 

 OBTAINED IN MATCHED WALNUT VENEER 



exampled by the famous one belonging to the 

 Albany Historical Society, which is eight feet 

 high and of unusual beauty. 



The following is an "ad" from the Weekly 

 Mirrior in 1774 "To be sold at private sale a 

 large black walnut cupboard with a set of Delft." 



Walnut furniture was commonly listed in the 

 American claims for damages by British soldiers 

 in the Revolutionary War. 



"The question of our available supply and how 

 long it is going to last is always one of the first 

 brought up in a walnut discussion," writes F. S. 

 Baker, of the United States Forest Service. 



it is particularly interesting at the present 

 time when what was popularly supposed to be 

 a commercially extinct species has suddenly ap- 

 peared to be so plentiful. To say just how much 

 we have in board feet is difficult but it is probably 

 not far from one billion feet board measure. It 

 is a more meaning statement to say that we have 

 enough to assure a sustained annual cut of 50 

 million feet. This was claimed, before the war, 

 by H. A. McCowan, an exceedingly well-posted 

 black walnut manufacturer. Of course the war 

 cut has eaten into the merchantable growing 

 stock very badly. On the other hand a slump in 

 the walnut market in the next few years will 



allow a recovery of this temporary overcut. Just 

 how much of a slump will actually occur is hard 

 to forecast. Our domestic markets normally 

 absorb only about half of the total cut or about 

 25 million feet, and how fast our foreign trade 

 recovers is especially problematical. 



It appears that we can carry on a nice little 

 business of 50 million feet a year indefinitely if 

 we have that thing seldom found outside of text 

 books "normal gradation of age classes." 



If getting at the amount of merchantable wal- 

 nut in the country is largely a guess, the determi- 

 nation of the immature growth is something still 

 worse. Opinion, in the West at least, is very 

 much agreed, however, that we have plenty of 

 young walnut down to six inches D. b. h. and 

 then practically nothing at all. The sudden lack 

 of reproduction is very noticeable everywhere, 

 and is rather hard to account for or even to 

 believe in at first. It seems due to a number of 

 factors incident to settlement of the country and 

 intensive agricultural use. Most woodland is 

 grazed by cattle that destroy the young trees of 

 all kinds and by pigs that eat the walnuts befor 

 they have been long off the trees. Barbed wire 

 fences have replaced the zigzag pole fences that 

 offered protection to all kinds of wild forest 

 growth, and cultivated lands and pastures come 



A BEAUTIFUL, LUMINOUS PIECE OF WALNUT VENEER 



