742 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Pakt IIL 



4730. To have a regular succession of strawberries throughout the autumnal months. This is commonly 

 done by means of the wood and alpine species, and their varieties. Garnier thinks it maybe accomplished 

 by late planting ; for example, of Wilmot's late scarlet, or the common scarlet about May. He has 

 planted runners of the roseberry on the 1st of July, and gathered fruit on the 7th of September. {Hort. 

 Trans, iv. 482.) Williams cultivates the alpine for this purpose. " Early in the month of May, when 

 they are in flower, he cuts away all the blossoms, preserving the leaves uninjured ; this is again repeated 

 at the end of the month. Towards the middle or end of June more blossoms appear, and the plants afford 

 flowers and fruit, all the latter part of the summer, and till cut off by the autumnal frosts. If the first 

 blossoms were not removed,-the principal crop of alpines would be ripe at the time the larger strawberries 

 are in season, and consequently of httle worth ; but by this mode of culture, they come into bearing in the 

 latter part of the summer, just at the time the other kinds are over." {Hort. Trans, v. 247.) 



4731. For forcing the strawberry, see Chap. VII. Sect. VIII. 



Sect. IV. Nuts. 



4732. Among nuts the most useful in this country is the walnut, both for the dessert 

 and pickling ; the filbert is also a very useful fruit ; chestnuts are wholesome and nutri- 

 tive, and form, in Spain and Italy, an important article of human food. 



SuBSECT. 1. Walnut. — Juglans regia, L. (Lam. ill. 181.) Moncec Folyan. L. and 

 Terehintacece, J. Noyevy Fr. ; Walnussbaum, Ger. ; and iVbci, Ital. 



4733. The walnut is a large and lofty tree, with spreading boughs, and pinnate leaves, 

 having a very strong aromatic odor. The male flowers come in subterminating aments ; 

 the females scattered two or three together in close sessile buds on the young wood near 

 the extremities of the branches. The fruit is an ovate, coriaceous, smooth drupe, enclosing 

 an irregularly grooved nut, which contains a four-lobed oily eatable kernel, with an irre- 

 gular knobbed surface, and covered with a yellow skin. The flowers are produced in 

 the end of April and beginning of May, and the fruit ripens in September and October. 

 It is a native of Persia and the south side of Caucasus ; but it is supposed to have been 

 introduced here from France, and called gaul-nut, before 1562. 



4734. Use. The kernel, when ripe, is in esteem at the dessert ; and the fruit whole, ^ 

 in a green state, before the stone hardens, is much used for pickling. An oil which 

 supplies the place of that of almonds, is expressed from the kernel in France. In Spain 

 they strew the gratings of old and hard nuts, first peeled, into their tarts and other meats. 

 The leaves strewed on the ground and left there annoy worms ; or macerated in warm 

 water, afford a liquor which, from its bitterness, may effect their death. The unripe 

 fruit is used in medicine for the same purpose. Pliny says, " the more walnuts one eats, 

 with the more ease will he drive worms out of his stomach." The timber is used in this 

 country for gun-stocks, being lighter in proportion to its strength and elasticity than any 

 other. It is almost exclusively used in cabinet-work in most parts of the continent. 

 The young timber is held to make the finest-colored work, but the old to be finer varie- 

 gated for ornament. 



4735. Varieties. Those commonly cultivated for their fruits are — 



The round early oval I Highflyer of Thetford, the best variety known. 



Double large French ' {H- Trans, iv. 517.J 



Tender-shelled, and thick-shelled | 



4736. Propagation. It has generally been propagated from the nut ; and this mode is recommended 

 by Miller and Forsyth ; probably from their not having known that the tree may be continued by inocu- 

 lation as practised successfully by Knight. Inarching this tree was long ago recommended by Boutcher, 

 who says, " he found the fruit in this way produced in one third of the time necessary for plants raised 

 from the nut." 



4737. Knight, " having planted, in the spring of 1799, some walnut-trees of two years old in garden- 

 pots, raised them up to the bearing branches of an old walnut-tree, and grafted them, by approach, with 

 parts of the bearing branches of the old tree. An union took place during the summer, and in the 

 autumn the grafts were detached from the parent stock. The plants thus obtained were planted in a 

 nursery, and, without any peculiar care or management, produced both male and female blossoms in the 

 third succeeding spring, and have since afforded blossoms every season." {Hort. Trans, i. 61.) After 

 numerous trials, he also succeeded in propagating the walnut-tree from budding. " The buds of trees," 

 he observes, " of almost every species, succeed with most certainty when inserted in the shoots of the 

 same year's growth ; but the walnut-tree appears to afford an exception ; possibly, in some measure, 

 because its buds contain within themselves, in the spring, all the leaves which the tree bears in the fol- 

 lowing summer ; whence its annual shoots wholly cease to elongate soon after its buds unfold ; all its 

 buds of each season are also, consequently, very nearly of the same age : and long before any have 

 acquired the proper degree of maturity for being removed, the annual branches have ceased to grow 

 longer, or to produce new foliage. To obviate the disadvantages arising from the preceding circumstances, 

 I adopted means of retarding the period of the vegetation of the stocks, comparatively with that of the 

 bearing tree ; and by these means I became partially successful. There are at the base of the annual 

 shoots of the walnut and other trees, where those join the year-old wood, many minute buds, which are 

 almost concealed in the bark, and which rarely or never vegetate, but in the event of the destruction of 

 the large prominent buds which occupy the middle and opposite end of the annual wood. By insert- 

 ing in each stock one of these minute buds, and one of the large and prominent kind, I had the pleasure 

 to find that the minute buds took freely, whilst the large all failed without a single exception. This 

 experiment was repeated in the summer "of 1815, upon two yearling stocks which grew in pots, and had 

 been placed, during the spring and early part of the summer, in a shady situation under a north wall ; 

 whence they were removed late in July to a forcing-house, and instantly budded. These being suffered to 

 remain in the house during the following summer, produced from the small buds, shoots nearly three fort 

 long, terminating in large and perfect female blossoms, which necessarily proved abortive, as no male 

 blossoms were procurable at the early period in which the female blossoms appeared : but the early 

 formation of such blossoms sufficiently proves that the habits of a bearing branch of the walnut-tree may 

 be transferred to a young tree by budding, as well as by grafting by approach. The most-eligible situation 

 for the insertion of buds of this species of tree (and probably of others of similar habits) is near the summit 

 of the wood of the preceding year, and of course, very near the base of the annual shoot ; and if buds of 



