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| • | Walnuts are recognized as the oldest tree food known to man, dating back to about 7000 B.C. |
| • | In ancient times, walnut oil was prized as a drying oil for paint. Michelangelo himself used it to paint the Sistine Chapel in Rome. |
| • | Walnut trees are grown in orchards. The trees yield their first nuts for commercial production 6-8 years after planting, and can continue to produce walnuts for as long as a century. |
| • | Walnuts are removed from trees by shakers. They are then collected from the orchard, and taken to processing plants to be dried and cleaned. |
| • | A Japanese tire manufacturer uses ground walnut shells to improve the grip of its tires. |
| • | The walnut appears in Greek mythology in the story of Carya, with whom the god Dionysus fell in love. When she died, Dionysus transformed her into a walnut tree. The goddess Artemis carried the news to Carya’s father and commanded that a temple be built in her memory. Its columns, sculpted in wood in the form of young women, were called catyatides, or nymphs of the walnut tree – so the tree furnished the image for a famous Greek architectural form. |
| • | Old country lore maintains that if you whip a walnut tree, it produces more nuts! |
| • | The first commercial plantings in California began in 1867 when Joseph Sexton, an orchardist and nurseryman in Santa Barbara County planted English walnuts. For several years, walnuts were predominantly planted in the southern areas of California. |
| • | Some 70 years after Sexton’s first planting, the centre of California Walnut production moved northward to the Stockton area in one of the most dramatic horticultural moves in history. Better growing areas, improved irrigation, and better pest control methods in the north resulted in greater yields, which gradually increased each year. |
| • | The Central Valley of California is now the state's prime walnut growing region. Its mild climate and deep, fertile soils provide ideal growing conditions for the California Walnut. California Walnuts account for 99 per cent of the commercial US supply and two-thirds of world supply. |
