256 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



may be yews of greater age, and perhaps oaks, but the 

 latter would be self-sown, or the acorn would be hidden 

 in the earth by some provident squirrel; and the old 

 yews arose in all likelihood from berries eaten by Saxon 

 thrushes : the Tortworth chestnut came in any case from 

 a human hand, no trees of its kind having existed in our 

 island before the time of its occupation by the Romans. 

 There are plenty of other grand chestnuts in England. 

 Throughout the whole of the charming tract of hill and 

 valley lying between Redhill and Guildford, chestnuts 

 are quite at home. In that portion of the domain at 

 Goodwood which once formed a separate park, attached 

 to Halnake House (now a ruin), there are chestnuts with 

 a girth of eighteen to twenty feet. Similar trees may be 

 seen at Dartington Hall, near Totnes : in Windsor Forest 

 there is one that at a yard from the ground measures 

 over thirty-four feet. 



Asia Minor seems to have been the region from which, 

 in ancient times, this tree was originally conveyed to 

 Europe. Certainly it existed there in plenty in the time 

 of Xenophon, since chestnuts were the food of his entire 

 army during the retreat along the borders of the Euxine. 

 Possibly it may have grown spontaneously also in south- 

 eastern Europe. How far westwards it may have 

 extended, there is no evidence to show. For centuries 

 it has now constituted entire woods in many of the 

 mountainous parts of southern Europe, reaching through 

 Dalmatia, Italy, the south of France, and Spain, even 

 into Portugal. In Germany, also, there are extensive 



