English Walnuts | Page 2

be placed on the yield per acre of orchards in full bearing, but the growers are confident that they will soon be deriving from $800 to $1600 per acre, this figure being based on the number of individual trees which are already producing from $90 to $120 a year. The success with the nut in California can be duplicated in the East providing certain hardy varieties are planted; and in the few instances where orchards have been started in the East, great things have already been done and still greater are expected in the next few years.
[Sidenote: =Origin of the English Walnut=]
But where did this walnut originate? What is its history? Juglans Regia (nut of the gods) Persian Walnut, called also Madeira Nut and English Walnut, is a native of Western, Central and probably Eastern Asia, the home of the peach and the apricot. It was known to the Greeks, who introduced it from Persia into Europe at an early day, as "Persicon" or "Persian" nut and "Basilicon" or "Royal" nut. Carried from Greece to Rome, it became "Juglans" (name derived from Jovis and glans, an acorn; literally "Jupiter's Acorn", or "the Nut of the Gods"). From Rome it was distributed throughout Continental Europe, and according to Loudon, it reached England prior to 1562. In England it is generally known as the walnut, a term of Anglo-Saxon derivation signifying "foreign nut". It has been called Madeira Nut, presumably because the fruit was formerly imported into England from the Madeira Islands, where it is yet grown to some extent. In America it has commonly been known as English Walnut to distinguish it from our native species. From the fact that of all the names applied to this nut "Persian" seems to have been the first in common use, and that it indicates approximately the home of the species, the name "Persian Walnut" is regarded as most suitable, but inasmuch as "English Walnut" is better known here, we shall use that name in this treatise.
As a material for the manufacture of gunstocks and furniture the timber of the nut was long in great demand throughout Europe and high prices were paid for it. Early in the last century as much as $3,000 was paid for a single large tree for the making of gunstocks.
[Sidenote: =Planting and Cultivation=]
Everything depends upon the planting and cultivation of English Walnuts as indeed it does of all other fruits from which the very best results are desired. The following general rules should be thoroughly mastered.
PLANT ENGLISH WALNUT TREES:
On any well-drained land where the sub-soil moisture is not more than ten or twelve feet from the surface.
Wherever Oaks, Black Walnuts or other tap-root nut trees will grow.
Forty to sixty feet apart.
In holes eighteen inches in diameter and thirty inches deep.
Two inches deeper than the earth mark showing on the tree.
AND REMEMBER:
That the trees need plenty of good, rich soil about their roots.
That the trees should be inclined slightly toward prevailing winds.
That the trees should not be cut back.
That the ground cannot be packed too hard around the roots and the tree.
That the trees should be mulched in the Fall.
That the ground should be kept cultivated around the trees during the Spring and Summer.
That English Walnut trees should be transplanted while young, as they will often double in size the year the tap-root reaches the sub-soil moisture (that is, the moist earth).
That tap-root trees are the easiest of all to transplant if the work is done while the trees are young and small.
That trees sometimes bear the third year after transplanting three-year-old trees where the sub-soil moisture is within six or eight feet of the surface.
That the age of bearing depends largely on the distance the tap-root has to grow to reach the sub-soil moisture.
[Sidenote: =Peculiarities of Growth=]
The growth of the English Walnut is different from that of most fruit trees. The small trees grow about six inches the first year, tap-root the same; the second year they grow about twelve inches, tap-root the same; the third year they grow about eighteen inches, tap-root nearly as much. For the first three years the tap-root seems to gain most of the nourishment, and at the end of the third year, or about that time, the tree itself starts its real growth. After the tap-root reaches the sub-soil moisture, the tree often grows as much in one year as it has in the preceding three or four. If the trees are transplanted previous to the time that the tap-root reaches this moisture and before the tree starts its rapid growth, very few young trees are lost in the process of transplanting.
[Sidenote: =Orchard Planting=]
For orchard planting the trees should be placed from forty to sixty feet apart and by staggering the rows a greater distance is gained between individual trees. Any other