t came to a breaking of the peace,
the grand walnut ended its hundreds of years of life to become mere
lumber for its destroyers! The real estate man who sold the land greatly
admired the tree himself, realizing also its great value to the suburb,
and had never for one moment dreamed that the potential vandal who
bought the tree-graced parcel of ground would not respect the inherent
rights of all his neighbors. He told me of the loss with tears in his
eyes and rage in his language; and I have never looked since at the
fellow who did the deed without reprobation. More than that, he has
proven a theory I hold--that no really good man would do such a thing
after he had been shown the wrong of it--by showing himself as dishonest
in business as he was disregardful of the rights of the tree and of his
neighbors.

[Illustration: The wide-spreading black walnut]

The black walnut is a grand tree from any point of view, even though it
so fully absorbs all water and fertility as to check other growth under
its great reach of branches. The lines it presents to the winter sky are
as rugged as those of the oak, but there is a great difference. And this
ruggedness is held far into the spring, for the black walnut makes no
slightest apparent effort at growth until all the other trees are
greening the countryside. Then with a rush come the luxuriant and
tropical compound leaves, soon attaining their full dignity, and adding
to it also a smooth polish on the upper surface. The walnut's flowers I
have missed seeing, I am sorry to say, while registering a mental
promise not to permit another season to pass without having that
pleasure.

Late in the year the foliage has become scanty, and the nut-clusters
hang fascinatingly clear, far above one's head, to tempt the climb and
the club. The black walnut is a tree that needs our care; for furniture
fashion long used its close-grained, heavy, handsome wood as cruelly as
the milliners did the herons of Florida from which were torn the
"aigrets," now happily "out of style." Though walnut furniture is no
longer the most popular, the deadly work has been done, for the most
part, and but few of these wide-spread old forest monarchs yet remain.
Scientific forestry is now providing, in many plantings, and in many
places, another "crop" of walnut timber, grown to order, and using waste
land. It is to such really beneficent, though entirely commercial work,
that we must look for the future of many o