1883.] TBEES AT LONG ISLAND. 116 



The bark is, I believe, not very far inferior to that of Oak for 

 tanniiif,'. 



Chestnut timber, no doubt, bears a lower price in the market than 

 Oak, but this I apprehend is in some decree due to its comparative 

 rarity having led in a great degree to its disuse, and consequently to 

 a want of demand. But even at its present low price it is evident 

 that it would be much more profitable to grow it on poor soils than to 

 grow Oak. I have here (Oldlands, Uckfield) Chestnut trees which I 

 have reason to believe to be less than 40 years old, one of which 

 measures 2 ft. in diameter at three feet from the ground, and runs at 

 least 30 ft. without branching. I do not believe that an Oak would, 

 on the same soil, have attained like dimensions in twice as man}^ years. 



I have used Chestnut wood grown here in some rather diliicult 

 carving with much satisfaction, for while it cuts very freely and 

 smoothly, it is very strong and tenacious, and can be undercut in the 

 boldest manner. 



Every one recognises the beauty of the tree, but I may add that the 

 leaf when dying takes a very fiue, rich ^yellow, which in Autumn, 

 contrasts most beautifully with the colours assumed by the Oak and 

 the Beech. 



I enclose a fragment of the ancient carving whicli 1 have mentioned, 

 which will show how fine the colour of old Chestnut becomes. 



The wood has another important advantage over Oak, viz., that it 

 does not warp. 



Alexander Nesbitt. 



Oldlands, Uckfield. 



Trees at Long Island. — Tliere are some remarkable trees now growing 

 on Long Island, according to the Flushuiy Times: — A AVhite Mulberry- 

 tree on a farm at Mattituck is twelve feet in circumference at the butt. 

 Two large trees near Southold are more than one hundred and tifty years old 

 and each is as large near the ground as a barrel. In Aquebogue stands a Black 

 Walnut-tree twelve feet in circumference and one hundred across the top. It 

 still bears fruit. A Weeping-willow on premises in Eiverhead is now more than 

 a century old, and is thirteen feet in circumference near the ground. A Walnut 

 on the farm of the late William Cullen Bryant is twenty-five feet in circumference 

 one-and-a-half feet from the ground, and one hundred and tifty across the top. 

 It bears abundantly. Islip boasts a Pear-tree of whose fruit the oldest resident 

 of the town, who is now eighty years of age, ate when he was a boy. He says it 

 was then a large fruit-bearing tree. Last season it yielded its full complements 

 of fruit. There is a Weeping-beech in the old parson's nursery at Flushing, 

 which is forty feet high and about the same distance across the top. The limbs 

 droop to the earth all around, but leave several openings resembling Gothic dooi-s 

 through which one may pass to the interior. 



