HOW TO GROW GOOD TIMBER. 291 



CHAPTER XLIII. 



ON THE CHESTNUT AND WALNUT. 



The Chestnut and Walnut are here brought together, 

 not only as producing two useful kinds of hard- 

 wooded timber, but from the fact of both being 

 bearers of esteemed kinds of fruit. They are neither 

 grown to the same extent in England as on the Con- 

 tinent, and probably neither of them is indigenous 

 to this country, although it is stated by Sir W. 

 Hooker to grow in woods apparently wild, in the 

 south and south-west of England. As regards the 

 fruit of the former, it may be said that in parts 

 of Spain " Spanish Chestnuts " are a staple article 

 of food. In England they are sometimes brought to 

 table as a stuffing for turkeys, or roasted for dessert ; 

 but their greatest consumption among us is with the 

 poor, who, in winter, with a halfpenny-worth of 

 roasted chestnuts enjoy the double luxury of warm 

 fingers and a sweet nutritious diet. Walnuts, as a fruit, 

 are highly esteemed by all classes : as much by those 

 who crack and peel them in a second or third class 

 railway carriage, as by the squire who takes them as 

 a concomitant with his glass of port. With us they 

 arc only cared for while they can be peeled, but 

 abroad they are carefully dried, in which state they 

 form an important article of commerce. In the 

 Portuguese court of the International Exhibition of 



