English walnuts: What you need to know about planting, cultivating and harvesting this most delicious of nuts

In California the nut industry is becoming a formidable rival of the orange; in fact, there are more dollars worth of nuts (all varieties) shipped from the state now per year than oranges. One grower is shipping $136,000 worth of English Walnuts a year while another man, with an orchard just beginning to bear, is getting about $200 an acre for his crop.

No standard estimate can at present be placed on the yield per acre of orchards in full bearing, but the growers are confident that they will soon be deriving from $800 to $1600 per acre, this figure being based on the number of individual trees which are already producing from $90 to $120 a year. The success with the nut in California can be duplicated in the East providing certain hardy varieties are planted; and in the few instances where orchards have been started in the East, great things have already been done and still greater are expected in the next few years.

[Sidenote: =Origin of the English Walnut=]

But where did this walnut originate? What is its history? Juglans Regia (nut of the gods) Persian Walnut, called also Madeira Nut and English Walnut, is a native of Western, Central and probably Eastern Asia, the home of the peach and the apricot. It was known to the Greeks, who introduced it from Persia into Europe at an early day, as "Persicon" or "Persian" nut and "Basilicon" or "Royal" nut. Carried from Greece to Rome, it became "Juglans" (name derived from Jovis and glans, an acorn; literally "Jupiter's Acorn", or "the Nut of the Gods"). From Rome it was distributed throughout Continental Europe, and according to Loudon, it reached England prior to 1562. In England it is generally known as the walnut, a term of Anglo-Saxon derivation signifying "foreign nut". It has been called Madeira Nut, presumably because the fruit was formerly imported into England from the Madeira Islands, where it is yet grown to some extent. In America it has commonly been known as English Walnut to distinguish it from our native species. From the fact that of all the names applied to this nut "Persian" seems to have been the first in common use, and that it indicates approximately the home of the species, the name "Persian Walnut" is regarded as most suitable, but inasmuch as "English Walnut" is better known here, we shall use that name in this treatise.

As a material for the manufacture of gunstocks and furniture the timber of the nut was long in great demand throughout Europe and high prices were paid for it. Early in the last century as much as $3,000 was paid for a single large tree for the making of gunstocks.