J GO ENGLISH BOTANY'. 



Sweet Chestnut. 



French, Chdtaigner commun. German, Esshare Kastanie. 



Tlie sweet chestnut is probably not indigenous to Britain, but it must have been 

 introduced at a very early period, and is said to have been brought to Europe by the 

 Greeks from Sardis in Asia Minor, about 604 B.C. Theophrastus mentions that in 

 his time Mount Olympus "was nearly covered with chestnut trees, and Pliny enume- 

 rates eight kinds that Avere known to the Romans in his day. He tells us that 

 chestnuts were ground into flour and made into bread by the poor. The chestnut 

 tree grows in Britain to as large a size as the oak, which, when old, it somewhat 

 resembles. It is probable that the sweet chestnut was introduced into Britain in 

 the time of the Romans for the sake of its fruit; there are some old trees still 

 standing Avhich were probably planted at that time. A fine old tree at Tortworth, in 

 Gloucestershire, is mentioned in a record of the time of Stephen as of great age, 

 forming one of the boundaries of the manor, and is supposed by Strutt to have been 

 in existence in the time of Egbert, more than a thousand years ago. The oldest tree in 

 the neighbourhood of London is that at Cobham, in Kent, and the town of Cheshunt, 

 in Hertfordshire, is said to have derived its name from the number of chestnut trees 

 that formerly grew there. 



It would seem, however, that at one time chestnut trees were comparatively scarce 

 in England, for in an old tract entitled, "An Old Thrift Newly Revived," published in 

 1G12, the author recommends planting the chestnut "as a kind of timber tree, of 

 which few grow in England," and which, he adds, will not only produce " large and 

 excellent good timber, but good fruit, that pooi"e people, in time of dearth, muy, with a 

 small quantitie of oats or barley, make bread of." He also adds, " WTien you first 

 begin to plant it, it will grow more in one years than an oake will doe in two. Mr, 

 Loudon tells us that Hartlib, who wrote early in the seventeenth century, says, " In 

 divers places of Kent, as in and about Gravesend, in the countrey and elsewhere, 

 very many prime timbers of these old barns and houses are of chestnut wood ; and 

 yet there is now scarce a chestnut tree within twenty miles of the place, and the 

 people altogether ignorant of such trees. This shoAveth that in former times those 

 places did abound with such timber." 



In the year 1676 an ancestor of the family of Wyndham, of Felbrigg, in Norfolk, 

 was said to be a great planter of chestnuts, which in about fifty years' time were 

 thinned and applied to useful purposes. The tree, however, was comparatively 

 neglected till the end of the last century, when the Society of Arts, reviving the idea 

 that the carpentry of many of our old buildings consisted of chestnut wood, offered 

 rewards for planting the tree, and these were given to a number of individuals who 

 made plantations of it. Much of the wood, however, that is supposed to be chestnut 

 in our old buildings is now thought to be oak, and Buffon demonstrates that oak- 

 wood, after a number of years, jiuts on the appearance of chestnut; and in 1780 two 

 French observers, Fougeroux and Daubenton, showed that the wood of Qnerats 

 sessiliflora had been constantly mistaken for that of the sweet chestnut. This error 

 has given the chestnut wood a reputation for durability which it does not deserve. 

 Evelyn observes, " The chestnut is, next the oak, one of the most sought after by the 

 carpenter and joiner. It hath formerly built a good part of our ancient houses in 

 the City of London, as doth yet 'appear," The author of the " Sylva" adds, "If the 

 timber be -dipped in scalding oil and well pitched, it becomes extremely durable, but 

 otherwise I cannot celebrate the tree for its sincerity, it being found that, contrary 



