364 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



THE CHESTNUT AND THE BEECH. 



BY WILSON FLAGQ. 



The Chestnut, (Castanea vesca,) is a beautiful and ma- 

 jestic tree, valuable for the excellence of its fruit, the breadth 

 of its shade and the durability of its timber. In many 

 points it resembles the oak, but has a looser ramification, and 

 spreads itself over more space, in proportion to its height. In 

 many points it is like the beech — an allied species — having 

 a similar foliage, and bearing its nuts in a prickly bur. In 

 size and rapidity of growth it exceeds the oak, and is ranked 

 with the largest of our forest trees. It is not uncommon to 

 find the chestnut, in favorable situations, upwards of ninety 

 feet in height in the forest. In the open plain, it is a wide- 

 spreading tree, often exceeding its own height in diameter, 

 surpassing in this respect almost all other trees. 



The chestnut is a classical tree, having been well known 

 to the ancients, on account of its frequency in the southern 

 countries of Europe. To those who, early in life, were famil- 

 iar with the Greek and Latin authors, those trees which are 

 frequently named in their works, especially in the works of 

 the poets, acquire a peculiar interest. Probably no little cir- 

 cumstance ever contributed so much interest to a tree, as the 

 mention of the beech in Virgil's First Eclogue. The exile 

 Melibceus, having been deprived of his estate by the conqueror 

 of his country, laments his evil fortune, and congratulates 

 Tityrus, one of his neighbors, who was unmolested and en- 

 tertained his sylvan muse, under the spreading branches of 

 a beech tree. The chestnut is hardly less frequently men- 

 tioned both by the poets and the historians. " This is the 

 tree (says Gilpin) which graces the landscapes of Salvator 

 Rosa. In the mountains of Calabria, where Salvator painted, 

 the chestnut flourished. There he studied it in all its forms, 

 breaking and disposing of it in a thousand beautiful shapes, 

 as the exigencies of his composition required." 



The foliage of the chestnut is peculiar. The leaves are 

 large, lanceolate, tapering to a long point, and of a dark pol- 

 ished green. The leaves, though arranged alternately on 



