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practical experience, has kindly furnished me with a description of the timber 

 which he finds in old buildings, and recognises as chestnut. He says : — " It is of 

 a dead chocolate colour ; decay commences in the interior of the timber, accomp- 

 anied by large quantities of powder, which is seldom found in oak; the wormholes 

 are large, and the timber gives way by breaking straight across the fibres, instead 

 of splintering as does oak. It is of a dead nature, and yields to the chisel 

 uniformly in every direction. It does not ring when struck ; there are no starlike 

 rays in the knots ; the sawdust is dark and of an unpleasant smell." 



Most workmen will say that if a nail is driven into oak it will cause the 

 wood to become black, while chestnut will remain unchanged in colour. Chestnut 

 is also said to be proof against all attacks of the worm, but the specimens of Italian 

 furniture at the South Kensington Museum, labelled "chestnut," show wormholes 

 pretty freely. But I am inclined to think that this is really walnut, which is the 

 wood of which Italian furniture is usually made. 



But, although I have obtained many specimens of so-called chestnut from 

 persons who fully believed that they were able to discriminate them, every one of 

 them has turned out to be oak, varying in colour, or hardness, or degree of decay, 

 as we might expect oak timber of great age to vary. And although I have 

 enquired of the persons most likely to meet with chestnut in old buildings, I have 

 always found such persons unable to give an instance of its occurrence. Sir 

 Gilbert Scott has recently written to me in effect that he knows of no instance, 

 nor yet of any mediaeval record of its use. The eminent French architect, Mons. 

 Viollet le Due, says, in his dictionary, that during the middle ages, at least, in 

 France, oak was exclusively used for the joinery of buildings. I hear from a 

 friend who has discussed this matter with him, that he knows nothing of the use 

 of chestnut in roofs. Yet it is not uncommon to meet with a very positive state- 

 ment that some roof of a French Church is of chestnut, and there is in Normandy 

 a strong opinion that chestnut was anciently used there. Now, Normandy re- 

 sembles England in the scarcity of the chestnut tree, both countries being further 

 northwards than the districts in which it flourishes, but the theory by which its 

 presence in old roofs is accounted for, makes England the source of the supply ! 

 Beyond a very slight notice of the growth of chestnut, near London, about the 

 time of Henry II., I know of no record that tends to show its existence here in any 

 quantity, previously to the great efforts made to promote its cultivation early in 

 the present century. There are, however, cases where it was planted, to a small 

 extent, of which the magnificent avenues at Croft Castle, in Herefordshire, and 

 Betchworth, in Surrey, are examples. 



The chestnut is said to have been introduced into Italy by the Romans, 

 from Castanea, in Thessaly, and it would be strange if they had made no effort to 

 introduce into this country a tree so beautiful and of such utility. But our 

 climate forbids its flourishing, by natural increase from seed, to any great extent. 

 It is not until we get so far south as the centre of France, that the chestnut 



