The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1907-06-22
PASSING OF THE WALNUT.
American Farmer.

The distressing news comes that American
walnut lumber is being bought for foreign
shipment. The domestic destruction had al.
most exterminated the supply, and what little
is left, it seems, is to go abroad to be used as
substitute for mahogany in veneers. This
sounds like death-knell and soon no doubt
we are to see the last of the walnut trees.
sigh will go up from the old settler as he re.
calls the early American forests where the
walnut reigned as prime favorite. The once
magnificent groves have disappeared almost
entirely. Here and there few stragglers re-
main to remind us of the lordly splendor that
characterized their prime. There were other
fine trees, many of them, which combined to
make that great natural wonder, the primeval
American forest. All of these had their pecu-
liar merits, were valued for some especial vir-
tue, and were known and loved by every true
child of nature. The oak the elm, the poplar,
the beech, and scores of others had their spe-
cial admirers. But the walnut was looked
upon with peculiar regard. Not only was it
famous for its durability, color and strength,
but around it clustered many of the tender
recollections of childhood. 1t grew always in
the richest soil. Around it the blue grass was
most lush and put on its deepest green. There
the oxlips and nodding violets reached their
finest form. Hardly could be found the wild
brier the sweet musk roses and the egantine.
Not only was the walnut prince among
woods, but it was nut bearer, furnisher OF
food. The gathering of the nuts afforded one
of the chief delights of childhood. There the
children gathered in the golden days of jolly
autumn to make the woods resonant with their
laughter. Under the spreading limbs of the
walnut, on the velvety greensward many q
love vow was plighted, many a romance begun
that fingered through all the years of after life.
The walnut, too, was the favorite home of the
squirrels. There of all places he loved to linger
lighting up the limbs with his sprightly spring
ing and lending ineffable grace by his inimita-
BILE poses. How sweet the green nuts smelled
as the children rolled them in their hands and
how delicious the matured kernel when cracked
out by the winter fireside. The hickory tree
deserves notice, the beech and the chestnut tree
lent pleasure to the seekers after nuts, and the
oaks with their acorns attracted the wild pigeons
in countless millions, but above and beyond
them all in solid worth and enduring qualities
must be placed the sturdy walnut.
it is therefore with pang that we record the
possible determination of these noble trees.
Greed knows no mercy, commercialism sets no
bounds to its grasping cupidity, and the be-
loved walnut is manifestly on the way to ex-
tinction. Cannot something be done to save
it, to replace the elders by younger growth
that in time may restore the waste p? Syste-
matte effort to cultivate and protect the walnut
trees ought to meet with the hearty co-opera-
ton of every boy and girl that has been in the
woods in the fall. Let the school children be
appealed to and let them be set to work all over
the country to see that the walnut shall not
disappear. 1t will prove educational as well as
preventative, for what lesson for the child is
the simple planting of tree 1t is first les
son in unselfishness, in kindness and in love,
because it teaches thoughtfulness for Others
1t is a lesson in good citizenship because it
looks forward to the needs of the future. 1t is
a lesson in economies lesson in the realm of
wonderful Mother Nature lesson in art, a
lesson in detaiIs-in all these things and Others
because the act is making the world more
beautiful, more comfortable, more useful, more
delightful and therefore better world to
live in.