English Walnuts | Page 5

and the meat fuller than any he had ever before tasted. The shell was unusually thin and Mr. Pomeroy was astonished, for he never believed the English Walnut grew in the East.
Knowing the varieties grown in California could not be raised in the East or North, he questioned his landlord and found that this particular tree had been brought from Northern Europe. Mr. Pomeroy determined at once that possibly this variety would be hardy enough for cultivation in New York State. He procured some of the nuts and put them in his satchel which he entrusted to a neighbor who was about to start home. The neighbor reached home all right and so did the nuts--but--the neighbor's children found the rare delicacies and ate all but seven. They would doubtless have eaten these too but fortunately they had slipped into the lining of the satchel where Mr. Pomeroy found them on his return to Lockport. These seven nuts, which had so narrow an escape from oblivion, are now seven beautiful English Walnut trees, sixty or more feet high and the progenitors of the Pomeroy orchards, all of which are now producing nuts like the originals--a very fine quality.
[Sidenote: =Some uses of English Walnuts=]
English Walnuts to be used for making pickles, catsup, oil and other culinary products, are gathered when the fruit is about half mature or when the shell is soft enough to yield to the influence of cooking. The proper stage can be determined by piercing the nut with a needle, a certain degree of hardness being desired. The nut is often utilized for olive oil in some parts of Europe. It takes one hundred pounds of nuts to make eighteen pounds of oil.
In England the nuts are preserved fresh for the table where they are served with wine. They are buried deep in dry soil or sand so as not to be reached by frost, the sun's rays or rain; or by placing them in dry cellars and covering with straw. Others seal them up in tin cans filled with sand.
[Sidenote: =Examples of Hardiness=]
As an illustration of the hardiness of the English Walnut, there is a tree at Red Hill, Virginia, which was brought from Edinburgh, Scotland, when six months old, planted in New York, where it remained three years, then removed to Staunton, Virginia, and after two years taken to Red Hill. In consequence of so many changes, the tree at first died back, but is now thrifty--twenty feet high; trunk, eight inches in diameter at the ground.
During several severe Winters, the thermometer fell so low that some peach trees and grape vines growing near English Walnuts on the Pomeroy farm near Lockport, N.Y. were killed, while the nut trees were not in the least injured.
[Illustration]

The English Walnut at its Best.
A smooth, soft-shelled nut.
Meat full, with sweet, hickory-nut flavor.
Nuts fall clean and free from outside shuck.
Frosts harvest the nuts--in October.
They are self-pruning.
Require no care after arrival at bearing age.
An alkali sap keeps scales and pests from the trees.
Blossoms immune from late frosts, as they start late.
Pistillate and Staminate blossoms mature at same time in the best varieties, insuring perfect fertilization and productivity.
Bears more regularly than other nut trees.
Bears heavier crops the older it becomes, unlike other fruit trees the size and quality of whose fruit degenerates with age.

Interesting Figures about the English Walnut.
In Spain and Southern France there are trees believed to be more than 300 years old which bear from fifteen to eighteen bushels of nuts each, annually.
In Whittier, California, is a famous tree which has been leased for a term of years at $500.
Orchards seven and eight years old bring all the way from $1,000 to $2,000 per acre and are a fine investment, yielding from 15 to 125 per cent. according to age.
The total cost of producing and harvesting an English Walnut crop is about one and one-half cents a pound.
[Illustration]

Kernels of Fact about the English Walnut.
The United States consumes more than 50,000,000 pounds a year.
The United States imports about 27,000,000 pounds a year.
The price is advancing steadily with the demand.
Besides being profitable, the English Walnut is a clean, highly ornamental shade tree.
The leaves remain on the tree until late in the Fall, not littering up the ground during the Summer.
English Walnuts are not only a rare table delicacy, but may be utilized for catsup, pickles and oil.
One pound of walnut meat equals eight pounds of steak in nutriment--and is a far more healthful food.

What Luther Burbank has to say:
"When you plant another tree, why not plant the English Walnut? Then, besides sentiment, shade and leaves, you may have a perennial supply of nuts, the improved kind of which furnish the most delicious, nutritious and healthful food which has ever been known. The consumption of nuts is probably increasing among all civilized nations today