BOOK XVII. XXXIV. 147-150 



XXXIW The chestnut-tree is preferred to all other chestniu. 

 props because of the ease with which it is worked 

 and its obstinate durability, and because when cut it 

 buds again even more abundantly than the willow. 

 It asks for a Hght yet not sandy soil, and especially 

 a damp gravel or glowing-coal earth or even a powdery 

 tufa, and it will grow in a site however shady, and 

 facing north and extremely cold, or even in one on a 

 slope ; but at the same time it rcfuses dry gravel, red 

 earth, chalk, and all rich fertile soils. We have said §59. 

 that it is grown from the nut, but it will only grow 

 from very large ones, and only when they are planted 

 five in a heap together. The soil underneath must 

 be kept broken up from November to Februarv, when 

 the nuts detach themselves and fall fi-om the ti-ee and 

 sprout in the ground underneath it. They should 

 be planted in a hole measuring nine inches each way, 

 Avith spaces of a foot between them. After two 

 years they are transferred from this seed-plot to 

 another and replanted two feet apart. People also 

 grow them from a layer, which indeed is easier in 

 their case than with any other tree : for the root is 

 bared and the layer laid in thc trench at full length, 

 and then it throws out a new shoot from the top left 

 above the earth and another from the root. When 

 transplanted howcvcr it does not know how to make 

 itself at home and dreads the novelty for almost two 

 years, but afterwards it puts out shoots. Conse- 

 quently plantations felled for timber are replenished 

 by sowing nuts rather than by planting quicksets. 

 The mode of cultivation is not different from that 

 used for the trees " mentioned above : it is by 

 loosening the soil and pruning the lower part for 

 the next two years. For the rest the tree looks 



103 



