The Walnut (_Juglans regia_) is supposed to have been introduced from Persia by the Romans; but although we can have no claim to it as a native, yet it has thriven so remarkably well, as for many years since to have furnished us with a large quantity of a highly valuable timber. So much indeed is its wood esteemed, as to have caused its use only in the better kinds of cabinet-work, such as drawing-room furniture, internal fittings, and where mahogany would now be considered as somewhat common; it has, too, been ever esteemed as a wood for gun-stocks, as it combines hardness, toughness, and an agreeable colour with a great degree of lightness—being of a less specific gravity than that of any other kind of hard wood. Fowling-pieces, gentlemen’s rifles, pistols, and all the finer kinds of small arms, usually have stocks of walnut, as its texture, colour, and the sharpness with which fancy carvings can be worked, peculiarly adapt it for the purpose. During the continental war, English walnut fetched an enormous price. Selby tells us that a single tree was sold for £600, owing to which many of the noblest specimens were sacrificed; and Loudon tells us that, about 1806, no less than 12,000 trees were annually required for these uses in France. In England this tree is principally grown for its fruit, which is a great favourite when ripe as an adjunct to the social glass. Still enormous quantities are never allowed to attain to ripeness, from their being used in a green state for the purposes of pickling, sauces, and the like; indeed, so much is the green part of the walnut esteemed for its flavouring properties, that the very “hulls,” or coverings to the ripened fruits, are employed as an ingredient in the preparation of sauces and flavourings. Another use of the fruit, especially on the Continent, is that of making oil, which is considered to be little, if at all, inferior to fine olive-oil. The walnut-tree, then, may be considered as offering many claims for its more extensive cultivation, for although native growths of timber have been of late years in a measure superseded by American walnut and hickory wood, still it offers no mean inducements to the planter upon this score alone, at the same time it must be allowed that with us the chief inducement to the culture of this tree is the value of its fruit and the handsome tree which it makes. In the growth of this and the preceding, it is always best to procure good, healthy, young trees from the nurseryman; indeed, in planting all forest trees this may be considered as not only the best, but usually the cheapest mode of proceeding. CHAPTER XLIV. ON THE ELM.