1998 ARBORETUM AND FRUTFCETUM. PART IIJ. 



to the full action of the sun's rays, on riddles, for seven or eight days. Tha 

 effect of this will be to cause the fruit to shrink, and become somewhat fur- 

 rowed ; but it will retain its vital properties for planting, as well as its agree- 

 able flavour as an article of food, for a much longer period than if it had not 

 been dried. The nuts of the American chestnut are commonly sent over to the 

 British seedsmen in dried moss; but those of Spain and France, sent over for 

 the table, being generally smoked and kilndried, are seldom found to vegetate. 

 Du Hamel directs the nuts intended to produce young plants to be germinated 

 in sand, and the point of the radicle to be pinched off before planting; because 

 by these means the nuts are kept out of the ground till late in the spring, and 

 are in less danger of being eaten by vermin than if they were sown earlier. 

 Boutcher proves the seeds by throwing them into a tub of water, preserving 

 those which sink in dry sand till the beginning of March. He then sows 

 them in drills 1 ft. 2 in. apart, and the nuts Gin. asunder in the drill, covering 

 them with soil to the depth of 3 in. Sang gives a covering of only 2 in. The 

 nursery culture of Boutcher consists in taking up the plants at the end of the 

 first season, and replanting them in lines at 2ft. 6 in. asunder, and at 1 ft. dis- 

 tance in the line. Here they remain two years ; after which, he again removes 

 them (shortening the taproots which they will have formed) into lines 4 ft. 

 asunder, and 2 ft. distant in the line, where they are to continue 3 years ; 

 after which they may be transplanted to where they are finally to remain. 

 The grafting of the chestnut, according to Du Hamel, is most successful 

 when performed in the flute manner. Knight (Hort. Trans. , vol. i. p. 62.) 

 found the chestnut succeed readily when grafted in almost any of the usual 

 ways ; and, when the scions are taken from bearing branches, the young trees 

 afford blossoms the succeeding year. It has been said that the tree is propa- 

 gated by grafting in some of the Devonshire nurseries ; but we have ascer- 

 tained that this is not the case either in the Exeter Nursery, or in any of the 

 nurseries in the Isle of Jersey, where, as already observed, the chestnut is 

 much esteemed for its fruit. In pruning the chestnut as a fruit tree, it must 

 be borne in mind that the blossoms appear on the young wood of the current 

 year, which is produced at the extremity of the preceding year's shoots; 

 and hence the necessity of keeping the head open, in order to give 

 a greater surface for the annual production of young wood. In France, the 

 chestnut is very apt to produce those large shoots of one season, called 

 gourmandesy which are easily known on the chestnut, as on all other trees, by 

 their vigour, and by their proceeding from the trunk or the principal branches, 

 and never from the smaller branches. The usual remedy for this over-luxu- 

 riance in the tree is to shorten or remove these branches ; but Mr. D. Beaton, 

 in the Gardener's Magazine, vol. xiii. p. 203., has suggested a better mode; viz. 

 allowing the gourmandes to exhaust themselves, and thus carry off' the super- 

 flous vigour of the tree, only cutting out all the buds which they form ; in 

 consequence of which, the following year, the shoot becomes so weak as to 

 admit of its being cut out without incurring the risk of forcing the tree to 

 throw out other shoots of the same kind. Chestnut trees, whether grown 

 for fruit or timber, at a certain stage of their growth, Bosc says, when they 

 are from 200 to 300 years old, begin to decay at top ; their branches dying 

 back, and the leaves and fruit produced being much smaller than before. 

 When this is the case, the whole of the branches forming the head are cut in 

 to within 2 ft. or 3 ft. of the trunk, which invigorates the tree for a consider- 

 able period, and occasions it to produce remarkably large fruit. After this, 

 when the trunk of the tree has become hollow, and there is danger of its 

 being blown down by storms, it is pollarded, and in that state it forms a fine 

 globular head, and 'continues to produce fruit and faggot-wood for many 

 years. 



Felling the Chestnut. As timber, the chestnut can hardly be allowed to 

 stand with safety for more than 50 or 60 years ; and, even at that age, on 

 tolerably good and somewhat moist soil, it will be found shaky within, and 

 fit only for fuel. A more profitable time, probably, for felling it would be when 



