THE WALNUT 87 



pickle, whilst the * ripe nuts, which are not indi- 

 gestible so long as they will peel, are largely eaten 

 as an autumn and winter dessert fruit. In the 

 south of Europe the oil is largely expressed from 

 the kernels and used by artists for mixing with 

 dehcate colours, for lamps, as a substitute for 

 olive oil, and apparently as a hair-wash, whilst 

 the residual oil-cake is a valuable food for sheep, 

 pigs, or poultry. A bushel of walnuts will yield 

 fifteen pounds of kernels, and these give up half 

 their weight as oil. 



To collect the fruit, which ripens early in 

 October, the ends of the branches are commonly 

 thrashed with long poles. This breaks off many of 

 their points, and so causes the production of new 

 spurs, which will probably bear female, i.e. fruit- 

 bearing, flowers. This thrashing, the improving 

 feffect of which is also applied in the proverb to 

 wives and dogs, is therefore also practised in the 

 case of barren trees to make them bear. 



As grass and other plants will not grow well 

 under Walnut-trees, they are commonly banished 

 to hedgerows, road-jsides, and odd corners ; and 

 though, as the tree does not possess any very dis- 

 tinctive beauties, it has not received much notice 

 from the poets, this fact, with its other wrongs 

 and many virtues, is fully recorded by Cowley in 

 the following verses: — 



"The Walnut then approached, more large and tall 

 Her fruit which we a nut, the gods an acorn call : 

 Jove's acorn, which does no small praise confess, 

 TVe called it man's ambrosia had been less; 



