PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 427 



cultivated the walnut from the time of their kings ; they 

 considered it of Persian origin.^ I'hey had an old custom 

 of throwino: nuts in the celebration of weddini^s. 



Archaeology confirms these details. The only nuts 

 which have hitherto been found under the lake-dwellini^s 

 of Switzerland, Savoy, or Italy are confined to a single 

 locality near Parma, called Fontinellato, in a stratum of 

 the iron age.^ Now, this metal, very rare at the time 

 of the Trojan war, cannot have come into general use 

 among the agricultural population of Italy until the fifth 

 or sixth century before Christ, an epoch at which even 

 bronze was perhaps still unknown to the north of the 

 Alps. In the station at Lagozza, walnuts have been 

 found in a much higher stratum, and not ancient.^ 

 Evidently the walnuts of Italy, Switzerland, and France 

 are not descended from the fossil plants of the quater- 

 nary tufa of which I spoke just now. 



It is impossible to say at what period the walnut was 

 first planted in India. It must have been early, for 

 there is a Sanskrit name, akschoda, akhoda, or akhota. 

 Chinese authors say that the walnut was introduced 

 among them from Thibet, under the Han dynasty, by 

 Chang-kien, about the year 140-150 B.C.* This was per- 

 haps a perfected variety. Moreover, it seems probable, 

 from the actual records of botanists, that the wild walnut 

 is rare in the north of China, and is perhaps wanting in 

 the east> The date of its cultivation in Japan is un- 

 known. 



The walnut tree and walnuts had an infinite number 

 of names among ancient peoples, wdiich have exercised the 

 science and imagination of philologists,^ but the origin of 

 the species is so clear that we need not stay to consider 

 them. 



Areca — Areca Catechu, Linmeus. 



' Pliny, Hht. Plant., lib. xv. cap. 22. 



* Heer, Pflmzen der Pfahlhauten, p. 31. 



' Sordelli, Sulle piante della torhiera, etc., p, 39. 



* Bretschneider, Study and Value, etc., p. IG; and letter of Aug. 23, 

 1881. 



^ Ad. Pictet, Origines Ittdo-Europ., edit. 2, vol. i. p. 289 ; Helm, Cul. 

 turpjlanzen und Hausthiere, edit. 3, p. 311. 



