310 
EUROPEAN TREES. 
though inferior to the American in flavor, is larger, and is an 
important article of diet among the French and Italian peas¬ 
antry. The walnut of Europe, though not equal to some of the 
American species in beauty of growth or of wood, or to others 
in strength and elasticity of fibre, is valuable for its timber and 
its oil.* The maritime pine, which has proved of such im¬ 
mense use in fixing drifting sands in France, may perhaps be 
better adapted to this purpose than any of the pines of the 
New World, and it is of great importance for its turpentine, 
resin, and tar. The epicea, or common fir, Abies picea, Abies 
* The walnut is a more valuable tree than is generally supposed. It 
yields one third of the oil produced in France, and in this respect occupies 
an intermediate position between the olive of the south, and the oleaginous 
seeds of the north. A hectare (about two and a half acres), will produce 
nuts to the value of five hundred francs a year, which cost nothing hut 
the gathering. Unfortunately, its maturity must be long waited for, and 
more nut-trees are felled than planted. The demand for its wood in 
cabinet work is the principal cause of its destruction. See Laveeoxe, 
Economie Rurale de la France, p. 253. 
According to Cosimo Ridolfi (Lezioni Orali, ii. p. 424), France obtains 
three times as much oil from the walnut as from the olive, and nearly as 
much as from all oleaginous seeds together. He states that the walnut bears 
nuts at the age of twenty years, and yields its maximum product at seventy, 
and that a hectare of ground, with thirty trees, or twelve to the acre, is 
equal to a capital of twenty-five hundred francs. 
The nut of this tree is known in the United States as the “ English 
walnut.” The fruit and the wood much resemble those of the American 
black walnut, Juglans nigra , but for cabinet work the American is the 
more beautiful material, especially when the large knots are employed. 
The timber of the European species, when straight grained, and clear , or 
free from knots, is, for ordinary purposes, better than that of the American 
black walnut, but bears no comparison with the wood of the hickory, when 
strength combined with elasticity is required, and its nut is very inferior 
in taste to that of the shagbark, as well as to the butternut, which it some¬ 
what resembles. 
“The chestnut is more valuable still, for it produces on a sterile soil, 
which, without it, would yield only ferns and heaths, an abundant nutri¬ 
ment for man.” —Lavekgne, Economie Rurale de la France , p. 253. 
I believe the varieties developed by cultivation are less numerous in 
the walnut than in the chestnut, which latter tree is often grafted in 
Southern Europe. 
