FUTURE OF THE CHESTNUT TREE 



5 6 3 



Fig. 4. Chestnut Tree, near the Trail to Buck Spring Lodge, Pisgah Forest, 

 North Carolina. This tree measured eighteen feet in circumference. Photograph 

 supplied by the United States Forest Service. . 



The trunks of two of these Sicilian trees measured sixty-four and seventy 

 feet in circumference: and at the end of the last century the low trunk of . . . 

 the largest of the trees had a circumference of nearly two hundred feet at the 

 surface of the ground. . . . Trees with trunks from twenty to thirty feet in 

 circumference and believed to be at least a thousand years old, are not uncom- 

 mon in southern Europe, where the chestnut is the largest, and with the excep- 

 tion perhaps of the olive, the longest lived inhabitant of the forest. 



The above quotations apply of course to the European chestnut. In 

 North. America large trees of the native species are also not rare (Figs. 

 3 and 4) . Although definite data as to their ages are wanting, they show- 

 enough for our purpose, namely, that the American chestnut shares in 

 the family characteristic of extreme longevity enjoyed by its European 

 relative. 



