i6o The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Timber 



Until mahogany became common in England about the middle of the eighteenth 

 century, walnut was considered the most valuable wood for furniture, carving, and 

 inside work, and on the Continent most of the best old furniture was made from it. 

 Later it became very valuable for gun-stocks, and is still almost the only wood used, 

 for all except cheap guns. Loudon states that during the long wars at the beginning 

 of the last century in France no less than 12,000 trees were cut annually for gun- 

 stocks, which caused it to become very scarce, and in England as much as ^600 

 was paid for the wood of one tree. 



Sir W. Thiselton Dyer informs me that when for political reasons the War 

 Office thought it no longer desirable to depend on walnut, which was mostly imported 

 from the Black Sea, he was consulted as to what other wood might be found as a 

 substitute ; but though some twenty sorts of colonial woods were sent for trial from 

 the Museum at Kew to the Small Arms Factory at Enfield, none except the black 

 walnut was found to be at all suitable. 



The reason lor this is that walnut wood does not warp, and can be cut cleanly 

 in any direction to fit the locks and mechanism of the magazine rifle, and is not 

 liable to swell and bind the lock when wet. But it requires a good deal of care in 

 selection and in cutting out the stocks, so that they are not liable to break at the 

 grip ; and the best gunmakers in England obtain their stocks ready cut to specified 

 sizes from French merchants who make a spdcialitd of this trade. 



Maple wood has been found suitable in Japan, for when I was there during the 

 late war, I saw numbers of roughly shaped gun-stocks of that wood being cut in the 

 forest near Koyasan, and carried out on men's backs to supply the immense demand 

 of the arsenal. But in England it was found to make a rifle stock 4 ounces heavier 

 than walnut, and is also liable to warp. 



The late Mr. J. East told me that, in the year 1838, at Missenden in Bucks, four 

 walnut trees were sold in one lot for ^200, and about the same time two other trees 

 were sold for ;^ioo each, but the demand is now so much lessened by foreign importa- 

 tions, and by the substitution of other woods, such as mahogany and American 

 walnut, that its average price now is not more than from is. 6d. to 3s. per foot. 



The wood requires a long time to season thoroughly, and should not be used 

 for good work until three to six years after felling, as it is liable to shrink con- 

 siderably. It is also liable to be ring shaken, and has another great defect in the 

 fact that the sapwood, which forms a large proportion of most trees, is pale in 

 colour and very liable to be attacked by wood -eating beetles. Almost all the 

 old Italian furniture which I have seen is more or less damaged in this way, and 

 though the sapwood is often stained so as to look like the heartwood, it is better 

 in first-class work only to use the latter. 



As a rule English walnut does not show so much of the dark markings as 

 is found in the logs imported from Italy and the Black Sea, and Italian walnut is 

 usually specified by English architects. But I have seen such fine panelling 

 made from English wood alone that I have no hesitation in saying that with careful 



