658 Journal of Agriculture. [10 Oct., 1910. 



It is not difficult to please, as regards soil, provided this be neither 

 stiff, swampy, nor too rich in lime. Its powerful, deeply plunging roots 

 enable it to thrive in poor and rocky land. Granitic, as well as loamy 

 soils of schistose origin, .so abundant in A'ictoria, are particularly suitable 

 for it. 



The Chestnut in France. 



The following notes collected recently in southern and south central 

 France, in many districts of which the chestnut has for thousands of years 

 been the main source of food, both for man and beast, will serve as a 

 reminder and also, it is hoped, as a plea for greater attention being given 

 to this tree than it has yet received in Australia. 



Though commonly known as the Spanish chestnut and cultivated on an 

 enormous scale in Italy, as well as in most southern European countries, 

 it was in France that my viticultural investigations brought me most in 

 contact with it. Even in southern France its area of usefulness is limited, 

 being specialized in certain districts, and this for reasons which are of 

 special interest to Victorians. So far as climate is concerned, the greater 

 part of France is eminently suited for it. It is peculiarities of French 

 soils which limit its adaptation to certain localities. 



The fundamental difference between the soils of France and those of 

 Victoria lies in their respective lime contents. The vast extent of limestone 

 formations to be met with in France strikes the Australian visitor very 

 forcibly. The chestnut will only do well in soils free from lime; should 

 the percentage of this element, calculated as carbonate, exceed 4 per cent., 

 it will not thrive. Now soils containing less than this proportion are as 

 scarce in France as they are plentiful in Victoria — they are, in fact, in 

 that country, limited to certain regions. Wherever such regions occur, 

 however, one finds the chestnut asserting itself and becoming the main 

 standby of the inhabitants. In such districts as the Cevennes, many parts 

 of the Central Plateau, and the Pyrenees, this is more particularly the 

 case; so much so, that in the Cevennes it is often referred to as Varbre 

 a fain (bread tree). 



Other factors, no doubt, also contribute to its popularity, notably its 

 rusticity, which enables it to thrive in soils too poor for other crops. In 

 mountainous regions large tracts of poor, stony, uncultivable land are to 

 be met with, on which, prior to modern transport facilities, the inhabitants 

 largely depended on the chestnut tree for their sustenance. Of later years 

 cereals and potatoes have taken its place as human food, so it no longer 

 occupies the position it once did in this respect. 



In J 881, the seven most important chestnut-growing departments of 

 France, viz., Dordogne, Card, Lot, Ardeche, Aveyron, Correze and Tarn, 

 included, between them, 645,000 acres under chestnuts. In Corsica and 

 other parts the tree is likewise very largely grown, so that, if we allow a 

 rather lesser acreage for the remaining 79 departments of France, a very 

 moderate estimate, we find that the total area occupied by it cannot be 

 short of a million acres. 



The Ardeche department is one of those where this tree is to be found 

 in great abundance, and where, in former times, it formed the main 

 support of the population. Large areas of rocky land, too^ poor and too 

 rough for anv form of agriculture, can thus be utilized. Accustomed, as 

 Victorians are, to the large expanses of excellent land, almost every acre 

 of which is fit for the plough, it is not easy to realize this sort of country. 

 Nor is it easy to represent it pictorially — nevertheless, the photograph taken 

 near Rioms, on the road from Aubenas to Vallon, which it has been 



