DENDROLOGY. 



131 



The wood of this species is finer-grained, more compact, 

 heavier, and perhaps more durable than that of the chesnut. It 

 is well fitted for posts, and lasts in the earth more than forty 

 years. The saplings of this species are laden with branches 

 while they are no thicker than the finger, and are thus rendered 

 too knotty for hoops. Its bark is astringent and tonic, and has 

 been used with success in intermittents. 



American Chesnut. Castanea vesca* 



The Chesnut does not 

 venture beyond the 44th 

 degree of latitude. It is 

 found in New Hampshire 

 between the 43d and 44th 

 degrees, but such is the 

 severity of the winter that it 

 is less common than in 

 Connecticut, New Jersey 

 and Pennsylvania. It is the 

 most multiplied in the moun- 

 tainous districts of the Caro- 

 linas and of Georgia, and 

 abounds on the Cumberland 

 Mountains and in East Ten- 

 nessee. The coolness of 

 the summer and the mildness 

 of the winter in these regions are favorable to the chesnut ; the 

 face of the country, also, is perfectly adapted to a tree which 

 prefers the sides of mountains or their immediate vicinity, where 

 the soil in general is gravelly, though deep enough to sustain its 

 perfect developement. It is a stranger in Vermont, the state of 

 Maine, and a great part of Genesee, to the maritime parts of 

 Virginia, to the Carolinas, Georgia, the Floridas and Louisiana 

 as far as the mouth of the Ohio. 



The American chesnut sometimes attains the height of 70 or 

 80 feet with a circumference of 15 or 16 feet. Though this 



Fi". 1. A leaf. 



PLATE XVIII. 

 Fig. 2. The fruit. 



Fig. 3. A nut. 



