In the Golden Age, when man lived happily on a handful of acorns, the gods fed upon walnuts, and so their name was _Jovis glans_--the nuts of Jupiter--since contracted into _Juglans_. Those who delight in obvious interpretations by appealing to the modern meanings of words similar in construction may be pardoned for supposing that Walnut-trees were formerly trained against walls; but, like many other obvious interpretations, this is wide of the mark. Some have gone back to the Anglo-Saxons for help, and though the result arrived at is in all probability the correct one, it is almost certain that the Anglo-Saxons knew nothing of the matter, and would scarcely trouble to give a name to something they had never seen. The Walnut is a native of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kuh, Persia, Lebanon, and Asia Minor to Greece. The learned Roman, Varro, who was born B.C. 116, and died B.C. 28, mentions it as existing in Italy in his day; and Pliny tells us it was brought thence from Persia. The date of its introduction to Britain is usually set down as about the middle of the sixteenth century, but it was probably at least a century earlier, for Gerarde, writing at the close of the sixteenth century, describes it as a tree commonly to be seen in orchards, and in fields near the highways, where a very new importation was not likely to be found. But to return to the name: there can be little doubt that it is a contraction of W[:a]lsh-nut (in modern spelling, Welsh-nut), meaning foreign. This is German, and while the modern sons of the Vaterland write it Wallnuss (occasionally W[:a]lshenuss), the Dutch form is Wallnoot. That this is the true derivation is made pretty certain by Gerarde, who calls it "Walnut, and of some Walsh-nut." That the new importation was fully appreciated in Europe for its fruit may be judged by the extent to which its cultivation had spread in Evelyn's day, for he tells us the trees abounded in Burgundy, where they stood in the midst of goodly wheat-lands. He says: "In several places betwixt Hanau and Frankfort in Germany no young farmer is permitted to marry a wife till he bring proof that he hath planted and is a father of such a stated number of [Walnut] trees, and the law is inviolably observed to this day, for the extraordinary benefit the tree affords the inhabitants." [Illustration: _Pl. 137._ Walnut--summer.]