THE WALNUT— VARIETIES. 13 



(6) VARIETIES OP THE WALNUT {Juglans regia, Linn.). 



ENGLISH.* 

 (Plate X, Fig. 2.) 

 Synonyms : Madeira, Naples, Los Angeles, Common, Chile, Mission, etc. 



This walnut was the first introduced into our State ; from it innumerable 

 varieties have sprung, and of which the principal orchards of the State 

 consist. The name is applied to any variety of the so-called " English " 

 walnut. It would be difficult to determine the particular variety to 

 which this name belongs; however, it is a name applied by common 

 consent to any and all varieties that have originated from the so-called 

 " English " walnut, and really is more of a commercial name through 

 which the product is marketed. 



The principal orchards of the State consist of trees grown from seed 

 . of the so-called " English " walnut, and while the walnut comes truer to 

 seed than most fruits, it could not be claimed that all the orchards of the 

 State are of this particular variety, simply because the trees were raised 

 from seed of the original stock. In almost every orchard of the State 

 of early planting are trees bearing nuts wholly unlike the nuts pro- 

 duced by the parent trees, and they can only be classified as types of 

 the original nut, showing the great variation produced from planting the 

 seed. Many of these orchards, however, consist of types of rare quality, 

 such as the orchards in the Los Nietos Valley, Santa Ana Valley, San 

 Oabriel Valley, Carpinteria, Santa Barbara, etc. While most of the 

 types that originated from the seed grown on trees of early planting 

 produced a hard-shell nut, there were many that produced a thin or 

 soft-shell nut. The best and most productive orchards to-day consist of 

 trees grown from seed of the original trees. 



To describe the so-called " English " variety would be as difficult as 

 to describe the seedling orange and its many types. Oranges cultivated 

 from seed are known as " seedlings," but as the seed from these seedlings 

 has been planted continuously, and though the trees so produced bear 

 fruit so distinct and so variable, they are only seedlings from seedlings, 

 and are accepted under that name without regard to variety. 



Among those trees of early history were many that produced large, 

 clear, hard-shell nuts, which were greatly sought in the market. The 

 nuts of this type were in great demand for planting, although by con- 

 tinuous propagation from the seed for nearly a half century, without 

 regard to the degeneration of the species, many of these types have 

 been allowed to degenerate until their cultivation has been almost 

 abandoned. 



While seedling trees and small orchards of this so-called " English " 

 walnut, or "Los Angeles nut," are met with in almost every county of 

 the State, the successful culture of this hut and its many varieties has 

 been confined to the lower counties^from Santa Barbara to San Diego. 

 Trees grown from seed of this nut — " English " — in many sections have 

 proved too tender to withstand the cold of winter and the heat of summer. 



* For want of a better name, and to indicate the locality from whence it came (as it is 

 supposed by all the earliest British botanical writers to have first been introduced into 

 England by the Romans), it was called commercially the "English walnut." 



