24 
cies, has three big defects that should 
make every one reject this variety as 
worthless, except where it is known to do 
well. First, it puts forth too early, from two 
to eight weeks before the foreign kinds, and 
it is injured by late frosts in the spring 
three years out of four. Second, it does 
not mature its wood well in the fall, and 
it is nipped again by early frosts at that 
time. Third, it blooms very irregularly, 
as the owners all over the State can very 
well ascertain in the Spring at blooming 
time, the male flowers or catkins all drop- 
ping off before the female flowers or nuts 
have a chance to show themselves; con- 
sequently, the nuts not being fertilized by 
the pollen or yellow dust secreted by the 
catkins, drop off after attaining the size of 
a large pea. In this way does that va- 
riety keep barren or at least so unproduct- 
ive that it has already induced many peo- 
ple throughout this State and Oregon to 
cut down their trees, some of them over 
thirty years old; they having come to 
the conclusion that the country was not 
adapted to the walnut; while it is that 
worthless kind, the Los Angeles walnut, 
that is not adapted to our climate and 
that of Oregon. 
Here is a good illustration of the case 
under'discussion. A short distance from 
Nevada City is a large Los Angeles walnut 
tree, measuring 2i feet in diameter at the 
base, having been planted when four years 
old, in 1860. ' That tree yielded in 21 
years, 17 nuts, all in one year. In 1881 it 
was grafted into a Proeparturiens, and in 
1884 bore for a start 400 to 500 nuts, and 
last year, though the hailstorm on the "27th 
of April did considerable damage to the 
nuts then partly out in bloom, fivebush- 
als of nuts were gathered from that tree, 
and lots were carried awaj' into the woods 
by bluejays, birds very fond of acorns and 
softshell nuts of all kinds. This very 
tree stands 75 feet below a huge oak tree, 
which has been permitted to stand there 
on the right hand side of the entrance 
gate, on account of its beauty. That oak 
tree measures four feet in diameter with a 
top from sixty to seventy feet in height; 
though its branches do not meet those of 
the walnut, it towers up above the latter. 
In the vicinity and on the hillsides are 
many other oak trees, but much Smaller, 
and that again sprung up after the cutting 
down of large oak trees years ago. Well, 
this close proximity to oaks does not seem 
to hinder in the least the growth, develop- 
ment and bearing qualities of the walnut, 
as it should be the case if there were any- 
thing true in that assertion, that " wal- 
nuts would not do well where an oak for- 
est had recently existed." 
The irregularity of bloom of the Los 
Angeles walnut and its consequent unre- 
liability as a bearer, also its tenderness, 
first drew my attention to walnut culture 
in California and induced me to introduce 
into this country the best and most hardy 
foreign kinds known. In that way did I 
experiment these last twenty years on the 
following foreign varieties: Proepartu- 
riens, Cluster, Mayette, Franquette, Par- 
isienne, Grenoble, Serotiua, Chaberte, 
Grand Mesange or Paper-Shell, Vourey, 
Meylau, Culong, and also fancy kinds, like 
Weeping walnut, ash-leaved walnut, Mam- 
moth walnut, and others. 
Those foreign varieties differ widely 
from each other, all having special char- 
acteristics, some being recommended 
either for the extraordinary size and fine 
shape of the nuts, or for their surprising 
fertility and precocity; others for their late- 
ness in budding, which enables them to 
withstand, uninjured, late frosts, so com- 
mon in the spring that hardly one-tenth of 
the whole area of this State may be said 
to be exempt of them. A question, how- 
ever, has often been asked which among 
the large collection of foreign walnuts 
may be considered the best to plant for 
family use, and which the best for market ? 
A question of much importance, so that 
no mistake should possibly be made. 
As the size, shape, even color of the 
shell, is not precisely an object whenever 
a walnut tree is planted in the family gar- 
den, but rather the quality of the kernel, 
thinness of the shell, precocity and fer- 
tility of the kind, no variety recommends 
itself better for the family garden than the 
Proeparturiens, or Fertile walnut. Surely, 
there are varieties more late in budding 
out, such as Mayette, Vourey, Parisienne 
and Franquette, that might be preferred 
wherever late frosts in the spring are the 
rule, but, on the average, the Proepartu- 
riens will do in almost all parts of Califor- 
nia as the walnut par excellence for the 
family garden. The Proeparturiens is not 
precisely a large walnut, though "second 
generation " trees bear nuts of a fair size, 
some of them quite large, but it is so fer- 
tile and bears such good crops from the 
very start and when being quite young,' 
that it renders that kind very valuable. I 
have found the Proeparturiens to give good 
crops where'the Los Angeles walnut was 
barren; in Dutch Flat, high up in the Sier- 
ras, in the foothills of Butte county; in 
Marin county, close to the sea; in Stock- 
ton; in Nevada, 2,600 and 2,800 feet ele- 
vation in the mountains, and in many 
other places. 
Now, as to what varieties of walnuts to 
plant for market: It is a fact that the best 
marketable walnuts are those that are the 
largest, fairly shaped, thin-shelled not (pa- 
