SPANISH CHESTNUTS IN SCOTLAND. 47 



Eiigiisli Flora it is said to be " found " (indigenous) " in the 

 woods in the south and west of England." Tliis may, however, 

 well be doubted ; although, perhaps, straggUng specimens may be 

 found here and there in the woods planted by the hand of man. 

 In an old tract published in 1612, entitled "An Old Thrift 

 newly Eevived," the author remarks that " when you first begin 

 to plant it, a chestnut tree will gro we more in one yeare, than an 

 oake will doe in two in England;" and Tusser, writing so early as 

 1512, enumerates chestnuts as "fruit" trees to be planted at a 

 particular period of the year ; and further, the author of " Old 

 Thrift Eevived " also strongly advises the planting of chestnuts 

 as " a kinde of timber tree, of which fewe growe in England." 

 From these and similar references to the chestnut by early 

 writers, we may infer that it was not very largely represented in 

 the Sylva of Britain prior to the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century ; but however this may have been — if it ever was 

 .indigenous, and extensively spread over the country in early 

 ages — it appears to have fallen out of notice and rej^ute, until 

 about the beginning of the last century, when we find that the 

 Society of Arts revived the idea (which had been even in the 

 time of Henry VIII. strongly entertained), that most of the 

 roofing, ceilings, floor-joistings, and panelling of many of the old 

 churches and ancient buildings, was composed of Spanish chest- 

 nut wood, and offered rewards for the more extensive jilanting 

 of the tree in Britain, considering its timber for constructive 

 purposes to be superior to that of the oak. Doubtless, in the 

 timbers of these old buildings there must have been some confu- 

 sion, for the oak and chestnut, after being some time in use, come 

 to resemble one another very closely both in colour and grain ; 

 and there seems to be little room for doubt — from the numerous 

 discussions which have taken place on the subject — whether 

 Spanish chestnut wood ever was extensively used in constructive 

 purposes in many old buildings, where it is alleged to have been 

 found, that the wood of the indigenous oak {Quercus sessilifiora) 

 has frequently been mistaken for that of the Spanish chestnut. 

 So closely do these two woods resemble each other that Marshall 

 states that " Chestnut has sometimes been sent into the king's 

 dock, and passed off instead of oak ; " and again he says, " the 

 timber and bark of old chestnut trees are so very like oak as 

 might easily deceive an indifferent observer." This action of the 

 Society of Arts, however, led to a resuscitation of the planting of 

 the C. vcsca in the country ; and many noble specimens in a 

 healthy thriving condition at the present day were doubtless the 

 offspring of these endeavours of the early part of the eighteenth 

 century. The older patriarchs to be found in individual trees 

 surrounding the ruins of hoary abbey walls and mouldering piles, 

 or situated on " holy isle" or by cjuiet sequestered " holy well," 



