WALNUT TREE. 



WALNUT TREE. 



nurseries, when they have their fruit upon 

 them." 



The common walnut has several varieties, 

 as the oval walnut, the round walnut, the large 

 walnut, the small-fruited walnut, the double 

 walnut, the early walnut, the late walnut, the 

 tender thin-shelled walnut, and the hard thick- 

 shelled walnut. 



There are two other species, the hickory-nut, 

 or white walnut (/. alba], and the black walnut 

 (/. nigra). Both these are natives of Virginia; 

 but they are seldom cultivated in Britain, ex- 

 cept as timber trees. 



The best manure for the walnut is ashes, 

 spread in the beginning of winter, the land 

 having been first ploughed or trenched over in 

 an effectual manner. 



The length of time in which the English 

 walnut bears well from the nut is about 20 

 years. 



Mr. Knight has suggested that this tree will 

 bear much sooner when raised by grafting, 

 with bearing branches, by approach. But 

 where the trees are intended for timber, it is a 

 good practice to plant them out at once where 

 they are to grow, as they thrive faster, and 

 form better trees, by that method of raising 

 Jhem. 



These trees should not be planted nearer 

 -together than 40 feet, and even more distant, 

 if they are designed for fruit. They delight in 

 a firm, rich, loamy soil, or such as is inclinable 

 -to chalk or marl; and will thrive very well in 

 stony ground, or on chalk hills, as is evident 

 from those large plantations near Leatherhead, 

 Godstone, and Carshalton in Surrey, where 

 great numbers of these trees planted upon the 

 downs produce annually large quantities of 

 .-fruit, to the no small advantage of their owners. 



In order to preserve this fruit, it should be 

 left upon the tree till it is thoroughly ripe, and 

 then, as it would be exceedingly troublesome 

 to gather it by hand, it may be beaten off, but 

 not with such violence as is commonly used, 

 from a mistaken notion that the tree is im- 

 proved thereby; for most certainly it cannot 

 be benefited by that rough way of forcing off 

 the young wood upon which this fruit grows. 



The fruit is used in two different stages of 

 its growth : as when green, to pickle ; and 

 when ripe, to eat the kernel. For the first pur- 

 pose, the young green walnut, when about half 

 or near three parts grown, before the outer coat 

 and internal shell shall become hard, is most 

 excellent, for which they are generally ready 

 in July or the following month, and should be 

 gathered by the hand, choosing such as are as 

 free from specks as possible. But the fruit is 

 discovered to be fully ripe by the outer husk 

 easily separating from the nut, or by the husks 

 sometimes opening at the valve, and the nuts 

 dropping out, which occurs usually about the 

 latter end of September. In trees of consider- 

 able growth, it is commonly beaten down with 

 long poles ; for, as the walnuts grow mostly at 

 the extremity of the branches, it would, in 

 very large spreading trees, be troublesome and 

 tedious work to gather them by hand. As soon 

 as gathered, they should be laid in heaps a few 

 days to heat and sweat, to cause their outer 

 husks, which closely adhere, to separate from 

 137 



the shell of the nuts ; after which they should 

 be cleaned from the rubbish, and deposited in 

 a dry room for use, covering them over close 

 with dry straw, a foot thick, where they will 

 keep 3 or 4 months. They always command 

 a ready sale at market in large towns, where, 

 at their first coming in, they are bought with 

 their husks on, a'nd sold by the sack, or bushel, 

 but afterwards cleaned, and sold both by mea- 

 sure and by the thousand. 



Plantations of these trees in England are 

 therefore profitable, in their annual crops of 

 fruit, while growing, and in their timber when 

 felled or cut down. 



It is stated in the Gloucestershire Report, that 

 "it will grow almost in any soil, wants no 

 pruning nor care, and in less time than the oak 

 it will make a large tree. The wood is too 

 valuable to apply to the usual purposes of tim- 

 ber trees, but is always used either in cabinet 

 work or for gun-stocks ; for the latter, indeed, 

 so great has been the demand for a few years 

 past, from the Birmingham gun-makers, that 

 the county has been ransacked for this wood, 

 and high prices have been held out to tempt the 

 sale of it. In consequence of this, the stock 

 has been much diminished, and, with very few 

 exceptions, only here and there is a solitary 

 walnut tree seen growing. In the parish of 

 Arlingham there are more, perhaps, than in 

 many other parishes combined." 



Were it only for the oil that these nuts afford, 

 the trees which produce them would be worth 

 some care. It has been observed by Evelyn, 

 that one bushel of them will yield 15 Ibs. of 

 peeled kernels, and that these will yield half 

 that weight of oil, which, the sooner it is drawn, 

 is the more in quantity, though the drier the 

 nut, the better is its quality. He adds, that the 

 lee or marc of the pressing, is excellent for 

 fattening hogs. Certainly it would be good 

 manure for land; as are the cakes of linseed, 

 rape, &c., after the oil has been squeezed out 

 of them. The green husks boiled, without any 

 mixture, make a good colour to dye a dark yel- 

 low-brown. The kernel being rubbed upon 

 any crack or chink of a leaking vessel, stops 

 it better than either clay, pitch, or wax. (Phil- 

 lips' s Fruits, p. 342.) 



In the variety of trees which compose the 

 vast forests of North America east of the Mis- 

 sissippi, the walnut, says Michaux the younger, 

 ranks after the oak, among the genera whose 

 species are most multiplied. In this particular, 

 the soil of the United States is more favoured 

 than that of Europe, to no part of which is 

 any species of this tree indigenous. This ar- 

 dent student of nature has designated 10 spe- 

 cies of walnut in the United States, including 

 the hickories, and thinks others may yet be 

 discovered in Louisiana. There is, he adds, 

 room to think that species may be discover- 

 ed, susceptible, like the pacanenut hickory, 

 of speedy melioration, by the aid of grafting 

 and attentive cultivation. Some weight is given 

 this consideration, by an observation of Michaux 

 the father, that the fruit of the common Eu- 

 ropean walnut, in its natural state, is harder 

 than that of the American species just men- 

 tioned, and inferior to it in size and quality. 

 To the members of agricultural societies ia 



1089 



