CHESTNUT 



(Caslanca Dentata) 



FIVE species of chestnut are known, three of them in the United 

 States. One of these, Castanea alnifolia, is a shrub and has no 

 place in a list of trees. Chestnut and chinquapin are the two others. 

 They are in the beech family to which oaks belong also. The ancient 

 Greeks designated these as food trees (Fagacece), not an inappropriate 

 name for chestnut which probably furnishes more human food than any 

 other wild tree. Its range extends from Maine to Michigan and south- 

 ward to North Carolina and Tennessee. It attains its greatest size in 

 western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. It is one of the few 

 well-known woods of the United States that does not bear a half dozen 

 or more local names in the various localities of its growth, but the wood is 

 invariably known as chestnut. 



Trees vary in size from sixty to 100 feet in height, and from two to 

 four in diameter. Trunks six feet through occur where trees have grown 

 in the open, but such are not tall, and are not valuable for lumber. 

 Chestnut trees are sometimes heard of in this country with trunks ten 

 and twelve feet through, but such must be very scarce, because no one 

 seems to know just where they are located. It is not improbable that 

 in rare cases such sizes have existed. In France and Italy trees much 

 larger are well authenticated, but that chestnut is of a species different 

 from ours. 



Chestnut is a very long-lived tree where it is fortunate enough to 

 escape the attacks of worms and disease ; but as age comes on, it is almost 

 certain to be attacked. Insects bore the wood, and fungus induces 

 decay. Frequently the heartwood of large trunks is all gone, and the 

 trees stand mere shells with scarcely enough sound wood left to support 

 the diseased tops. 



Few species sprout with more vigor than chestnut. In the moun- 

 tains of eastern Tennessee, W. W. Ashe found that ninety-nine per cent 

 of stumps sprout. This applies as well to veterans of three hundred 

 years as to young growth. Sprouts which rise from the top of a high 

 stump are liable to meet misfortune, because, under their disadvantage 

 they cannot develop adequate root systems; but sprouts which spring 

 from the root collar, or near it, may grow to large trees. It is claimed 

 by some that a chestnut which grows from a sprout has straighter grain 

 than one springing from seed. The latter's trunk is liable to develop a 

 spiral twist, not only of the wood, but also of the bark; but the sprout- 

 grown tree lacks the twist. 



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