THE SWEET CHESTNUT 43 



local importance having been built inside it. 

 Supposing each annual ring of wood to be a line 

 in thickness, a fair estimate for an unsplit tree, 

 the circumference of this giant of the forest would 

 indicate from 3,600 to 4,000 years of life. Other 

 trees in the neighbourhood of Etna, where Chest- 

 nuts are cultivated with great care, approach the 

 dimensions of the giant ; and, among other his- 

 torical trees on the Continent, one in the depart- 

 ment of Cher, in France, is noticeable as having 

 been celebrated as a large tree for five or six 

 centuries, though only thirty feet round. 



Though the rope-like steins and glossy foliage 

 of the Chestnut are more familiar objects in the 

 sunny south, whilst with us the tree is most 

 commonly seen as mere coppice-wood, we are not 

 without our giant specimens, which, no doubt, 

 have had great weight in the minds of those who 

 have claimed this species as a native of Britain, 

 such as John Evelyn, the immortal author of 

 " Sylva." In Earl Ducie's park at Tortworth, in 

 Gloucestershire, is the remnant of a tree spoken 

 of as old in the time of King Stephen, as, in- 

 deed, it might well be, even if the Chestnut be 

 of Roman introduction. This Tortworth Chest- 

 nut is portrayed in Strutt's magnificent " Sylva 

 Britannica," having in 1766 a circumference of 

 fifty, and in 1830 of fifty-two feet, at a height of 

 five feet from the ground ; but it is now a mere 

 fragment. At Burgate, near Godalming, in Surre} 7 ", 

 is a grove of some twenty splendid trees, two of 

 which exceed nineteen feet in girth, their enormous 



