[FIG. 74]. BEARING BRANCH OF ENGLISH WALNUT.
Earlier European authors claim that the walnut was first introduced into Italy by Vitellius (emperor) early in the first century of the Christian Era,—but this is uncertain,—the Romans giving it the name of Juglandes, or the nut of Jove or Jupiter, both being the same mythical personage. The nuts, at this early day, were highly prized, and also the wood of the tree, the latter being even more valuable than that of the citron (orange and lemon). Ovid wrote a poem about these nuts, entitled De Nuce, from which we learn that boys were employed to, or did of their own accord, knock off these nuts; and that at marriages walnuts were thrown by the bride and bridegroom among the children, a ceremony which was supposed to indicate that the bridegroom had left off his boyish amusements, and that the bride was no longer a votary of Diana, and it is quite probable that the French word for nuptials, des nôces, was derived from this ancient custom. The ancients also believed that walnuts possessed powerful medicinal properties, even to the curing of hydrophobia; but in these latter days they have lost most of their curative virtues, in the opinion of the medical fraternity.
As with the chestnut, the planting of the walnut extended northward into Gaul (France), hence the earlier name of Gaul nuts, which became corrupted into walnuts by the English-speaking people. The Italian name is Noci; in France, Noyer; and the Germans, with their usual habit of compounding names, call it walnuss-baum or walnut tree.
Joannis De Loureiro, in his work on the plants of China, "Flora Cochinchinensis," published in 1790, claims that this Persian walnut is also a native of the northern provinces of China, with two other species which he describes (p. 573), adding, however, that one of these is cultivated in Cochin China, and the other is found wild in the mountains.
The wild form of this world-wide-famous nut is, doubtless, quite different from the varieties with which we are familiar, for two thousand years or more of continuous cultivation and selections have greatly changed the character of these nuts, as well as the habit of the trees. The nuts from the wild trees are said to have a rather thick shell, and to be much smaller than the best of the improved cultivated varieties, or very like those we now obtain in China and Japan. The Persian walnut, in its many varieties, has been planted almost everywhere in Europe as far north as Warsaw, but does not appear to have run wild and become naturalized, as with many other kinds of fruit and forest trees. In Great Britain it has probably been cultivated ever since the invasion of the country by the Romans, although a much later date is named by some of our modern horticultural authorities. Dodoens (1552), Gerarde (1597), Parkinson (1629), and other of our early authors of works on cultivated plants, speak of the Persian walnut as common in various countries of Europe, Great Britain included. John Evelyn, in his "Sylva" (1664), says:
"In Burgundy, walnut trees abound where they stand, in the meadows of goodly lands, at sixty and a hundred feet distance, and so far as hurting the crop, they are looked upon as great preservers, keeping the ground warm, nor do the roots hinder the plow."
Evelyn, no doubt, had read what Pliny had said on this point, viz.:
"Even the oak will not thrive near the walnut tree; which, if it be true, may be owing to the interference of their roots in the subsoil; but it is certain that neither grass nor field nor garden crops thrive well under the walnut."
Evelyn was far too good a gardener and close observer to fall into the error of attributing noxious properties to the walnut tree, although Pliny's assertion, which has no foundation beyond his imagination, has been many times repeated in these days of supposed general intelligence. Small plants may fail, under the shade of large trees, or when deprived of moisture by the roots of such trees, but the walnut is no exception to the rule; in fact, such deep-rooted kinds are less injurious than those with roots nearer the surface. Evelyn, in continuing his account of the walnut in Germany, says: