56 A TREATISE ON NUT CULTURE. 



The above remarks have reference to the NATURAL growth of Chestnut, 

 while the grafted varieties come to bearing earlier, are more productive and 

 valuable. 



The Chestnut tree, on account of its magnificent proportions, handsome 

 form, clean, healthy foliage and freedom from insect enemies, is admirably 

 adapted to ornamenting large grounds or roadside planting. The prevalent 

 idea that they are a long time in coming to bearing is entirely removed since 

 the practice of top grafting with the improved varieties has been more gen- 

 erally adopted. Many sorts of recent introduction, when grafted in American 

 Chestnuts, will produce nuts at second or third year from graft and some of the 

 Japan sorts the year the scions are set. 



The American Chestmit in its natural form in open ground attains 

 immense proportions. In the town of Mansfield, Conn., on land of Mr. 

 Whipple Green, stands a giant, whose circumference at four feet from the 

 ground is twenty -three feet. It is heavily buttressed all around, and the trunk 

 is apparently sound. Four large branches have been sent out; the lowest, ten 

 feet from the ground, measures sixteen feet four inches in circumference. The 

 circumference of the buttresses at the ground is fifty-four feet. The diameter 

 of the spread of the branches is eighty-three feet from northeast to southwest, 

 and from the northwest to southeast one hundred feet. In height it is 

 estimated to be eighty feet. 



In Sicily, near Aetna, is reported an immense Chestnut tree that measured 

 one hundred and twenty feet in circumference, whose shade could shelter one 

 hundred horses and whose hollow trunk admitted two wagons side by side. 



CHESTNUT CULTURE. 



In his remarks on this subject before the New Jersey State Horticultural 

 Society, at their recent meeting, Mr. Charles Parry, among other things, said: 



"At the present prices of these nuts there is no more inviting field in all 

 horticulture than the growing of Chestnuts. At this time, when the prices 

 of many farm products are verging on the cost of production, and some going 

 far below it, Chestnuts alone not only yield a large profit to the grower, but 

 sometimes make returns that seem fabulous. This, too, with large tracts of 

 land, suitable for growing this crop, to be had for from $5 to |io per acre. 



" It seems strange that the United States cannot supply itself with Chest- 

 nuts, a crop so easily grown that once planted the tree continues to grow and 

 yield annually for centuries. Yet such is the fact. Every year, after exhaust- 

 ing its own supply, the United States draws upon Southern Europe for large 

 quantities, and yet the land in Southern Europe available for the Chestnut is 

 but a small percentage of that suitable for it here. When we compare the 



