COMMON WALNUT. 141 



lateral adhesion, lightness, and little liability to split or 

 warp in working, is the making of gnn stocks. In England, 

 till of late years, from the high price of the material, 

 its use was almost restricted to the stocking of fowling- 

 pieces, and other high-priced fire-arms, our muskets being 

 stocked with beech or other woods of inferior value. 

 During the last war, when most of the Continental ports 

 were shut against us, Walnut timber rose to an enormous 

 price, as we may collect from the fact of a single tree having 

 been sold for 600?., and as such prices offered temptations 

 that few proprietors were able to resist, a great number 

 of the finest Walnuts growing in England were sacrificed 

 at that period to supply the trade. This deficiency of 

 so necessary an article, the demand for which was daily 

 increasing, led to the introduction of the timber of the 

 American Walnut, which was found to possess similar 

 properties, as well as to the importation of the wood 

 of the Common Walnut from the coasts of the Black 

 Sea, from whence it appears any quantity that may be 

 required can at all times be obtained. This facility of 

 procuring an unlimited supply has now done away with 

 the inducement that previously existed, to plant the Wal- 

 nut solely with a view to its timber, and its cultivation 

 as such may be considered as nearly at an end ; as a 

 fruit-tree, however, it has of late years been rather upon 

 the increase in England, in consequence of the introduc- 

 tion of improved varieties, which produce finer nuts, and 

 at an earlier age than the common kind. In France, 

 where the Walnut has long been used as a cabinet 

 wood, as well as for other purposes, the consumption of 

 it for musket stocks alone during the war period was 

 enormous, as Loudon states that about 1806 no less than 

 12,000 trees were annually required for this purpose alone ; 



