Nature and Art, December 1, 1866.] 
GRAPHOTYPE. 
219 
season arrives, large convivial parties are assembled, 
much after the manner of the corn-huskings, candy- 
pullings, and apple-peelings of the United States of 
America, for the purpose of cracking the nuts before 
pressing. This is effected by the use of small light 
mallets, which some of the party use whilst others 
remove the kernels from the broken shells and place 
them unpeeled in baskets. Either horse or water 
power is usually made use of for grinding the nuts 
to a paste, which, when sufficiently fine, is placed 
in strong coarse bags, and subjected to heavy pres- 
sure. The first runnings of oil, known as the cold- 
drawn, are esteemed the best. The paste, after 
having the oil pressed from it, is used as food for 
pigs, sheep, and poultry ; anti in some localities 
a rough kind of candle is made from it. Dark- 
brown and black dyes are made from both the 
root and husk. Would-be gipsies and strollers 
have from very early ages availed themselves of the 
colouring juices of the walnut for the purpose of 
staining the faces and hands of newly-elected 
members or such poor stray children as evil fortune 
might cast in their way and enable them to kidnap. 
Referring to this custom, we receive advice in verse, 
with a reason for following it : — 
“ Go, stain your cheek with nut or berry, 
For the gipsy’s life is merry.” 
Although the quantity of walnuts grown in the 
United Kingdom is very large when compared with 
the other kinds contained in our dish, the number 
imported will serve to show how extensive and 
general this consumption must be. In the year 
1864 we find 125,659 bushels the quantity received 
from the various ports from which they are usually 
sent. The estimation in which the walnut was 
held in Cowley’s time will be best shown by quoting 
that which he has written about it : — 
“ The walnut then approach’d, more large and tall; 
Her fruit, which we a nut, the gods an acorn call — 
Jove’s acorn, which does no small praise confess, 
T ’ve call’d it man’s ambrosia had been less. 
Nor can this bead-like nut, shaped like the brain 
Within, be said that form by change to gain, 
As caryon call’d by learned Greeks in vain, 
For membranes soft as silk her kernel bind, 
Whereof the inmost is the tenderest kind, 
Like those which on the brain of man we find ; 
All which are in a seam-join’ d shell enclosed, 
Which of this brain the skull may be supposed. 
This very skull enveloped is again 
In a green coat, her pericranium. 
Lastly, that no objection may remain 
To thwart her near alliance with the brain, 
She nourishes the hair ; rememb’ring how 
Herself deform’d without her leaves does show, 
On barren scalps she makes fresh humours grow. 
Her timber is for various uses good, 
The carver she supplies with useful wood ; 
She makes the painter’s fading colours last ; 
A table she affords us, and repast — 
E’en while we feast, her oil our lamp supplies ; 
The rankest poison by her virtue dies — 
The mad dog’s foam and taint of raging skies. 
The Pontic king, who lived where poisons grew, 
Skilful in antidotes, her virtues knew. 
Yet envious fates, that still with merit strive, 
And man ungrateful, from the orchard drive 
This sovereign plant. Excluded from the field, 
Unless some useless nook a station yield, 
Defenceless in the common road she stands, 
Exposed to restless war of vulgar hands, 
By neighbouring clowns and passing rabble torn, 
Batter’d with stones by boys and left forlorn.” 
It lias long been a prevailing notion tliat walnut- 
trees were benefited by having their branches beaten 
by the long heavy poles (often iron-shod) used for 
knocking down the nuts. And some cross-grained 
old curmudgeon has thus written regarding the 
practice : — 
“ A woman, a dog, and a walnut-tree, 
The more you beat them the better they be.” 
It is devoutly to be hoped, if there is any truth 
in the doctrine of metempsychosis, that sometimes 
a little latitude is allowed, and plants as well as 
animals permitted to become the abiding-places of 
lost spirits ; in that case we should expect to find 
the aforesaid “ curmudgeon” safely bound up in 
the bark of some fruitful and well-thrashed walnut- 
tree. 
GRAPH 
S EVERAL months ago, in one of those columns 
of the press which, for a consideration, are quite 
impartially open to the most legitimate appeals 
for co-operation, and to the victim-traps of the 
financial depredators, there appeared the announce- 
ment of the “ Graphotyping Company, Limited.” 
It was emphatically “a bad time for a new com- 
pany,” and many an old concern has had a mauvais 
quart d’lieure since then : yet this one, we are told, 
has contrived not merely to hold its own through 
the financial hurricane, but to progress fairly 
toward realizing the hopes of its founders. We 
are glad of this, for we look upon Grapliotypy as 
a discovery and practice which will be presently 
recognized to have an important bearing upon fine 
arts, manufactures, amusement, and education. 
OTYPE. 
Our object not being to write a pamphlet, but 
to condense as many facts as possible into one or 
two pages, we will not travel into an account of 
wood-engraving from its supposed birth in the 10 th 
century to the present time. We assume the 
reader’s knowledge that the subject of a Avood-cut 
is first drawn by one artist in pencil, ink, or colour, 
upon a block of box-wood, and then that the spaces 
between the lines are cleanly cut away by the 
“ wood engi'aver,” who, to be successful, must him- 
self be an artist. From the block so prepared, or 
from stereotypes cast in moulds taken from it, are 
printed the impressions with which all are familial’. 
The quality of the cut that delights us in the high 
class Christmas-books, and in the weekly papers of 
our time, or offends in publications of a low grade, 
