The very name we have given it forbids us to claim the walnut as a native of the British Isles, for in Anglo-Saxon speech it was _wealh knut_, the foreign nut, just as they called the Celts of the West _wealas_, the foreigners, a name which has persisted to our times, as Wales. So, also, mediæval German writers termed France _das Welsche Land_, and, referring to the whole world, they described it as _in allen Welschen und in Deutschen Reichen_, "in all Welsh and German realms." It is not easy to fix the limits within which the walnut may be accounted indigenous, so widely has it been cultivated for its fruit; but it is certainly found as a wild tree over a great part of south-eastern Europe, through Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Persia, the Himalayas to Burmah, China, and possibly Japan. More has been laid upon Roman shoulders in connection with their occupation of Britain than perhaps they should justly bear, but we may safely credit our conquerors with having introduced the walnut, which they held in very high esteem as providing a favourite article of food, and the nuts were easily carried and planted. The name they gave it--_Juglans_, i.e. _Jovis glans_, "Jove's nut"--betokens the value at which they rated this tree. Pliny devotes a long chapter to the walnut, expressing doubt whether it was known in Italy during Cato's life (B.C. 234-149). He says that it was brought into Greece from Pontus (Asia Minor), thence to Italy, wherefore the fruit was called Pontic or Greek nuts. He also describes how these nuts were thrown at weddings, certainly a more formidable kind of missile than rice and confetti, as we now do use. The walnut has adapted itself to the soil and climate of the British Isles in exactly the same measure as the Spanish chestnut--that is, it will thrive in all parts of the United Kingdom and grow to very large dimensions under reasonable conditions of shelter; but it will not produce fruit worth gathering in ordinary seasons north of the English Midlands. Its merit as a timber tree entitles it to far more attention from foresters than it now receives, for, indeed, it is one of the most valuable hardwoods that can be planted. The fruit was too precious to the Romans to allow the tree to be used for that purpose, but, wrote Juvenal, _Annosam si forte nucem dejecerat Eurus--_"if the east wind happened to uproot an aged walnut"--the timber was highly prized for furniture. Howbeit, there are walnuts and walnuts. The tree, having been cultivated for its fruit from immemorial time, has developed a great number of varieties, producing large or thin-shelled nuts, which cannot be trusted for the production of fine timber. Where that is the purpose, it is important to plant the wild type, for which the demand is not such as to encourage nurserymen to stock it. John Evelyn, nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, urged his fellow-countrymen to give more attention to the walnut, but he urged in vain.