250 OF CHESNUTS. 



London was built with Chesnut and Walnut-tree ; 

 and at Sion House, the seat of the Duke of Nor- 

 thumberland, the stables are built with them from 

 the old monastery at that place, which was taken 

 down when the present mansion-house was built. 



The best way of propagating Chesnut-trees is 

 from seed, gathered when thoroughly ripe ; which 

 is generally about the latter end of October ; but 

 they should be not be gathered till the husks begin 

 to open, and the nuts appear of a brownish colour ; 

 they will then drop off themselves, and should be 

 carefully picked up in the morning, and particularly 

 after high winds ; those which are intended for 

 eating, or for seed, should be always suffered to 

 drop of themselves ; they will be found much 

 better than those that are beaten down. If how- 

 ever, the frost should set in early, you will be 

 under the necessity of threshing them down, which 

 should be done in a dry day. All that fall in the 

 husk should be thrown in heaps in a shed, or other 

 convenient place, and suffered to remain three 

 weeks, or a month, in that state, to ripen. They 

 should then be taken out of the husks, and the best 

 picked out and laid up by themselves, after being 

 well-dried, on mats, or cloths, in a sunny situation. 



bought three !?hillings-worth of Chesnuts in London on purpose 

 to treat his fellow-servants ; but finding that they would not ac- 

 cept of them, he sowed them in a bed in a garden at Ashted, 

 which then belonged to the Earl of Suffolk, and afterwards 

 planted out the young trees where they now stand. These trees 

 are, therefore, at this time sixty-two years old, from the seed. 



