778 
BUTTER TREE. 
3 ?ear ; though some reject this method as precarious, alleging, that 
a single circle is sometimes the produce of several years ; besides that, 
after a certain age, no new circles are found. 
Major Rooke, in his “Sketch of the Forest of Sherwood,” has some 
curious particulars respecting the age of oaks. In cutting down some 
timber, he found letters stamped on the body of the trees, denoting 
the king’s reign in which they were respectively marked. It appears 
that the bark had been stripped off when the letters were cut on the 
timber, which were covered by the next year’s growth of wood. Some 
are of James the First ; others, of William and Mary ; and one was 
marked in the reign of King John. This tree is supposed to have 
been upwards of seven hundred years old. It was cut down in 1791, 
and the letters w'ere found about eighteen inches within the surface, 
and about a foot from the centre of the tree. 
The Walnut Tree. 
This tree is originally a native of Persia, and attains, in this country, 
the height of from fifty to sixty feet ; having a beautiful erect trunk, 
that branches out into a large spreading crown, which is furnished 
with pinnated leaves. No place of equal extent is supposed to pos- 
sess so many valuable walnut-trees as Norbury Park in Surrey, which, 
about a century ago, was said to contain nearly forty thousand. — It 
is remarked as a proof of the uncertainty of their produce, that, ia 
some years, six hundred pounds’ worth of walnuts have been gathered 
from the trees in this park, whereas in others they have yielded 
scarcely a single bushel, Croydon fair is remarkable for its profusion 
of walnuts. The fruit, when fresh, is very grateful : it contains much 
oil. The juice of the green coat of the walnut will die the skin of a 
tawny hue ; an expedient resorted to by the Gipsies, not only to 
give themselves a dingy appearance, but to disguise any child whom 
they may have enticed from its parents. 
Shea, or Butter Tree. 
This is a tree, from the fruit of which the negroes, in the interior 
of Africa, between the tropics, prepare a kind of vegetable butter. 
These trees are not planted by the natives, but are found growing 
naturally in the woods; and in clearing woodland for cultivation, every 
tree is cut down but the shea. The tree itself very much resembles 
the American oak ; and the fruit, from the kernel of which, being 
first dried in the sun, the butter is prepared by boiling the kernel in 
water, has somewhat the appearance of a Spanish olive. The kernel 
is enveloped in a sweet pulp, under a thin green rind ; and the butter 
produced from it, besides the advantage of its keeping the whole 
year without salt, whiter, firmer, and Mr. Park says, (to his palate,) of 
richer flavour than the best butter which he had tasted made from 
cow’s milk. The growth and preparation of this commodity seem to 
be among the first objects of African industry in this and the neigh- 
bouring states ; and it constitutes a main article of their inland com- 
merce, In some places they dry the fruit in kilns, containing each 
