DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
195 
The Black walnut is one of the largest trees of our native 
forests. In good soils it often attains a stature of 60 or 70 
feet, and a diameter of three or four feet in the trunk, with a 
corresponding amplitude of branches. The leaves, about a 
foot or eighteen inches in length, are composed of six or eight 
pairs of opposite leaflets, terminated by an odd one. They 
contain a very strong aromatic odour, which is emitted plenti- 
fully when they are bruised. The large nut, always borne 
on the extremity of the young shoots, is round, and covered 
with a thick husk ; which, instead of separating into pieces, 
and falling ofl* like those of the hickory, rots away and 
decays gradually. The kernel of the Black walnut, too 
well known to need any description here, is highly esteemed, 
and is even considered by some persons to possess a finer 
flavour than any other walnut. 
The timber of this tree is very valuable : when well sea- 
soned it is as durable as the White oak, and is less liable to 
the attacks of sea- worms, etc., than almost any other ; it is 
therefore highly esteemed in naval architecture for certain 
purposes. But its great value is in cabinet-work. Its 
colour, when exposed to the air, is a fine, rich, dark brown, 
beautifully veined in certain parts ; and as it takes a bril- 
liant polish, it is coming into general use, in the United 
States, for furniture, as well as for the interior finishing of 
houses. 
The Black walnut has strong claims upon the Landscape 
Gardener, as it is one of the grandest and most massive trees 
which he can employ. When full grown, it is scarcely in- 
ferior in the boldness of its ramification, or the amplitude of 
its head, to the oak or the chestnut ; and what it lacks in 
spirited outline when compared with those trees, is fully com- 
pensated, in our estimation, by its superb and heavy masses 
