GEAN (Prunus avium)
In Bloom
By far the finest display of these cherries that I have seen is in the Arnold Arboretum, attached to Harvard University, Boston, U.S. There Professor Sargent and Mr. E. H. Wilson have got together what are probably the finest groups of these lovely trees outside Japan. The profusion of blossom, snowy white or rich pink, must be seen to be believed. Why is not more use made of them in the gardens of great country houses in our own country? They are perfectly hardy, but, as nurserymen usually supply them grafted on crab stocks, incessant vigilance is required during the young stages to prevent the stock reasserting itself and overcoming the scion.
Probably the reason why these exquisite forms of cherry and plum are not more often seen is to be found in the perverse habit which impels most people who have fine private pleasure grounds to spend the sweet o' the year in London. Having been asked by the wife of a great landowner to take counsel with their Scottish gardener about improving the pleasure grounds round their magnificent castle, and perceiving that the climate was peculiarly mild, the site facing the sea, yet sheltered, I suggested that he should plant some of the fine Himalayan rhododendrons, as it was just the place for them. His reply was resentful in tone. "The wur-r-rst of rhododendrons is that they will not flower when the family's at home." So tactless of the rhododendrons!
The Walnut
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.