ee Se 
610 
walnut-tree may be propagated with more suc- 
cess by budding. I have succeeded tolerably 
well in some seasons, and in one season perfectly 
well; but in several others not a single inserted 
bud has been found alive in the following year, 
though all had been inserted with the greatest 
care. I therefore communicate the following 
mode of grafting the walnut-tree, which I found 
most perfectly successful under many unfavour- 
able circumstances; and which mode, for rea- 
sons which I shall proceed to state, will, I be- 
lieve, point out the means of propagating some 
other species of trees with facility, which have 
not hitherto been so propagated without difficul- 
ty and uncertainty. The fluid which the seeds 
of the walnut-tree contain, when that is fully 
prepared to germinate in the spring, and which 
was deposited within it for the purpose of afford- 
ing nutriment to the seminal buds, or plumule, in 
the preceding autumn, is sweet, as in a great 
many other kinds of seed; but during germina- 
tion this becomes, in the seed of the walnut- 
tree, bitter and acrid. Similar changes take 
place in the sap which is deposited, for analo- 
gous purposes, in the bark and wood of the wal- 
nut-tree, during the germination of its buds; 
and I was led by the discoveries of M. Dutrochet 
to infer the probability, that the sap during, and 
subsequent to, its chemical changes, might ac- 
quire new and more extensive vital powers, I 
therefore resolved to suffer the buds of my grafts, 
and those of the stocks, to which I proposed to 
apply them, to unfold, and to grow during a week 
or ten days; then to destroy all the young shoots 
and foliage, and to graft at a subsequent period. 
A severe frost saved me the trouble of destroying 
the young shoots, but it deranged my experi- 
ment by killing much of the slender annual 
wood, which I proposed to use for grafts; so that 
I found some difficulty in discovering proper 
grafts. The swelling of the small, and previous- 
ly almost invisible, buds, within a few days ena- 
bled me to distinguish the living wood from that 
which had been killed by the frost, and the stocks 
were grafted upon the 18th day of May. My 
grafter had more than once been previously em- 
ployed by me to graft walnut-trees in various 
ways, and never having in any degree succeeded, 
he did not seem at all pleased with the task as- 
signed him, and very confidently foretold that 
every graft would die; and I subsequently found 
that he had insured to some extent the truth 
of his prophecy, by having applied grafts which 
were actually dead. The whole number employ- 
ed was 28, and out of these 22 grew well; gene- 
rally very vigorously, many producing shoots of 
nearly a yard long, and of very great strength ; 
and the length of the longest shoot exceeding a 
yard and five inches. The grafts were attached 
to the young (annual) wood of stocks, which 
were between five and eight feet high; and in 
all cases they were placed to stand astride the 
stocks, one division being in some instances in- 
~~ 
WALNUT. 
troduced between the bark and the wood, and 
both divisions being, in others, fitted to the 
wood or bark in the ordinary way. Both modes 
of operating were equally successful. In each of 
these methods of grafting, it is advantageous to 
pare away almost all the wood of both the divi- 
sions of the grafts; and therefore the wide di- 
mensions of the medulla in the young shoots of 
the walnut-tree do not present any inconve- 
nience to the grafter.” 
Green walnut fruit suitable for pickling should 
be gathered by hand from the tree when they 
are about one-half or three-fourths grown, before 
the outer coat and internal shell become hard; 
and only such as are freest from specks should be 
chosen. The common time of gathering them is 
the latter part of July and the former part of 
August.—Ripe fruit suitable for the esculency of 
the kernel should remain on the trees till the 
husk of some open at the valves and let out 
the nut, or at least till that of most or all be- 
comes easily separable from the nut; and this 
commonly happens in the latter part or toward 
the end of September. But in Scotland, in the 
north of England, and even in backward situa- 
tions much farther south, they seldom ripen at 
all; so that the planting of trees for the sake 
of producing them in these districts would be 
an absurdity. The ripe fruit, in consequence of 
its growing principally at the extremity of the 
branches, cannot easily or economically be ga- 
thered by hand; and it is commonly beaten off 
with long poles or rods ;—and this process breaks 
many of the points of the shoots, and causes the 
production of many cursons which afterwards 
bear flowers and fruits, and is therefore regard- 
ed as favourable to the prolificity of the trees, 
and is sometimes even practised upon a barren 
tree for the purpose of making it bear, but ought 
never to be done with any considerable violence, 
or with more than a gently beating action. As 
soon as the fruit are beaten down or otherwise 
gathered, they should be laid in heaps a few 
days to heat and sweat, so that their husks may 
readily separate from the shells; and after being 
cleared of the husks, they should be well dried a 
day or two beneath a well ventilated shed or in 
the open air and in sunshine; and then they 
should be stored away either on shelves in an 
airy room, or in a perfectly dry place beneath a 
twelve-inch layer of dry straw, or in jars or boxes 
among dry white sand; and if stored in the last 
of these ways, their shell will improve in colour, 
and their kernel be kept comparatively long and 
moist. 
The black or Virginian walnut, Juglans nigra, 
is a native of Virginia, Carolina, Maryland, and 
Ohio, and was introduced to Britain in 1629. It 
grows to be a large tree, yet commonly attains 
in this country only about two-thirds the height 
of the common walnut. The young shoots are 
smooth and of a greenish brown colour; their 
leaves come out irregularly, and are large and fine- 
