134 Upon the Propagation of the Walnut-Tree. 



ment, and perhaps constitutes, at best, only an unwholesome 

 luxury : but the tree affords timber of much greater strength 

 and elasticity, comparatively with its very low specific gra- 

 vity, than any other of British growth, and it is consequently 

 applicable to purposes for which no good substitute has 

 hitherto been found ; the stocks of the musket of the soldier, 

 and of the gun of the sportsman. 



The buds of trees, 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 con- 

 tain, within themselves, in the spring, all the leaves which 

 the tree bears in the following 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 inserting in each stock one of these minute buds, and 



