selection and seasoning, the best effect can be obtained from old trees grown on dry soil in this country; and in a small work on English timber by “Acorn”? it is stated that the home-grown timber is harder and more durable than the foreign.
The finest wood as regards colour and pattern comes from near the root, and from the forks in the tree, which, however, are liable to twist if used in the solid, and in order to obtain as much as possible of these figured pieces the tree, if old, should be grubbed, and great care taken in cutting it up into suitable thicknesses for the purpose for which it is wanted. The forked parts should be cut into thin veneers and matched as well as possible. For panelling, walnut comes only second to oak, and is found in some of the best houses in England. As a fine example of Italian walnut panelling | may mention the billiard room at Edgworth, near Cirencester, which was designed for my friend Mr. Arthur James, by Mr. Ernest George. Of modern English walnut panelling I have seen a good example put up in Mr. Franklin's beautiful old house, Yarnton Manor, near Oxford, which he has recently restored, and in which the panelling both of oak and walnut is admirable. The late Mr. Holford of Westonbirt, Tetbury, had his large music-room entirely fitted with walnut cut on his own estate.
A newer system of using walnut wood in large knife-cut unpolished veneers is now adopted by modern decorators, of which a fine example may be seen in the board room of the Royal Insurance Company at Liverpool.
One of the most valuable woods in the world is produced by the burrs or excrescences which are produced on the walnut tree, rarely in England, but more commonly in its native country, and which are sought for by agents travelling for French firms at Marseilles, who seem to have a monopoly of this wood. Sometimes they are very large, measuring two to three feet in diameter, but more usually smaller, and are sold at very high prices, as much as £50 to £60 per ton, according to Laslett. They are called loupes in France, and are cut into very thin sheets to cover the very finest pianoforte cases, and much used for cabinet-making. These burrs are said to grow on trees in mountainous and inaccessible regions in Circassia, Georgia, North Persia, and Afghanistan; and I am told by Mr. C.W. Collard that those now imported are not so fine as they used to be some years ago.
I can find no records or measurements of walnuts abroad which show that it ever exceeds in warmer climates the size it attains here; but the largest foreign log which I have ever seen was shown by Messrs. Riva and Massara of Milan at the Exhibition held there in 1906. This log measured about 28 feet long by 15 feet in girth, and was said to contain about 16 cubic metres of timber, equal to about 560 feet. Its weight was 14,800 kilogrammes, and I was informed by the owners that they paid 5800 francs (about £232) for it in Switzerland. But Correvon* quotes La Patrie Suisse to the effect that a walnut was cut at Bois-de-Vaux, near Lausanne, which required twenty-four horses to haul it. The lower part of its trunk measured about 24 feet, the diameter was 6 feet 4 inches, and the total contents about 700 cubic feet. This butt was sold for £150 to make gun-stocks. (H.J.E.)
1 Published by W. Rider and Son, London, 1903.
Nos Arbres, 267 (1906).
