THE WALNUT. 



561 



cuttings, and by grafting on any of the arbores- 

 cent species of Mespiles, Crataegus, or Oydonia, 

 the mode of proceeding the same as for the 

 mulberry {which see). 



Soil and situation the same as for the apple. 



Pruning and training. — The medlar is best 

 trained to a single stem from 4 to 6 feet in 

 height, allowing the branches to ramify out in 

 their natural direction, which is something be- 

 tween the horizontal and drooping. Sometimes 

 they are grown as shrubs, many shoots being 

 allowed to arise from the roots, and at other 

 times trained as espaliers. The former is the 

 most natural and best way. In either case the 

 pruning is the same as for the quince. To get 

 both, however, in the first instance, to form good 

 heads, the shoots should be shortened for a 

 year or two after planting ; after which, espe- 

 cially in the case of the medlar, pruning (except 

 the cutting away dead or misplaced branches) 

 should cease, as the flowers are terminal, or pro- 

 duced at the points of the shoots. The fruit 

 should be gathered early in November, choosing 

 a dry day, bruising them as little as possible, 

 and then, placing them thinly on the shelves 

 of the fruit-room, or in any other cool place, ex- 

 amine them frequently, and remove all such as 

 appear beginning to decay, for they are subject 

 to be attacked by a minute fungus, which would 

 speedily spread over the whole stock. 



Insects or diseases seldom attack them. 

 The European names are, Nespolo, Italian — 

 Neflier, French — Mispelboom, Dutch — Nespero, 

 Spanish — Mispelbaura, German. 



§ 4. THE WALNUT. 



The common Walnut (Juglans regia L.) is a 

 native of Persia, and conjectured to have been 

 introduced from France into England in, or 

 prior to, 1562. The Eomans held this tree in 

 high estimation, and hence the generic name 

 Juglans, from Jovis glans, the nut of Jove, the 

 specific name regia, the queen, from its pre-emi- 

 nence among nuts. Walnut, its vernacular 

 name, is said to be derived from Gaul-nut, the 

 nut of Gaul, from whence we received it. The 

 leaves and the oil have been employed in de- 

 stroying intestinal worms ; the unripe fruit is 

 used in medicine for the same purpose, and the 

 practice seems to be as old as the days of Pliny, 

 who says, " The more walnuts one eats, with 

 the more ease will he drive worms out of the 

 stomach." In good soils the tree will endure 

 for a century, and be productive to the last. It 

 usually begins to produce fruit when about 

 twenty years old. In some light soils, and pro- 

 bably when the roots have been confined, they 

 have been known to fruit when under ten years 

 old ; but by budding, as has been shown by 

 Knight, they will fruit in three or four years. 

 The fruit should be allowed to ripen on the tree, 

 and to fall of its own accord, when the nuts may 

 be gathered, deprived of their husks, dried and 

 preserved in sand till wanted for use. Green 

 walnuts make an excellent pickle, and should 

 be gathered before the stone becomes so hard as 

 to be felt when pricked with a needle. 



Propagation, for general purposes, by seed 



sown in spring in nursery-beds or broad drills, 

 the seedlings being transplanted the following 

 autumn, but more generally the second autumn. 

 The strongest plants might be drawn out the first 

 autumn for transplanting, leaving the smaller, 

 which would then have plenty of room, to the 

 next planting season. This is the most eligible 

 way when the trees are required for timber ; 

 but for fruit, the best varieties, of which there 

 are several, should be taken from fruit-bearing 

 trees, and inarched or budded on young healthy 

 seedling stocks. Boutcher, an eccentric but 

 clever nurseryman of Edinburgh, towards the 

 beginning of the last century, suggested this 

 mode of propagation ; and it would appear that 

 Abercrombie practised it, and the late Mr 

 Knight, about 1814, suggested the practice of 

 budding, and detailed his views of it in the 

 " Transactions of the Horticultural Society." 

 To the usual mode of inserting the bud in shoots 

 of the same year's growth, this enlightened hor- 

 ticulturist found that the walnut formed an 

 exception — " possibly," he says, " in some mea- 

 sure, because its buds contain within themselves, 

 in the spring, all the leaves which the tree bears 

 the following summer, whence its annual shoots 

 wholly cease to elongate soon after its buds un- 

 fold : all its buds for each season are also con- 

 sequently 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 these advantages he con- 

 trived to retard the vegetation of the stocks 

 comparatively with that of the bearing tree. 

 " 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 de- 

 struction of the large prominent buds which 

 occupy the middle and opposite ends of the 

 annual wood. By inserting in each stock one 

 of these minute buds, and one of the large and 

 prominent kind, I had," he says, " the pleasure 

 to find that the minute buds took freely, whilst 

 the large all failed without a single exception. 

 This experiment was repeated upon two yearling 

 stocks which grew in pots, and had been placed 

 during spring and the early part of summer in 

 a shady situation under a north wall " (this was 

 his mode of retarding vegetation), " whence they 

 were removed late in July to a forcing-house 

 and instantly budded. Those being suffered to 

 remain in the house during the following summer 

 produced, from the small buds, shoots nearly 3 

 feet 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 suffi- 

 ciently 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 engrafting by 

 approach. The most eligible situation for the 

 insertion of the buds of this species of tree (and 

 possibly 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 



