88 SEVENTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



mon people the bread made from chestnut flour is a staple article of diet. The 

 nuts, too, are often cooked as a vegetable, made into a soup or prepared as a 

 pudding, and when candied have a ready sale as an article of confectionery. 



The wood finds ready sale for a variety of purposes, as in this country. The 

 bark yields tannin, the coppice makes first-class vine stakes, while the large tree 

 trunks furnish wood material of various kinds, suitable wherever durability is 

 desired. It is asserted that there are chestnut trees on the slopes of Mt. yEtna 

 which bore fruit when Homer was a boy. 



Tt)e Cfyestfmt in America. 



Turning to our own country and our own State we find the chestnut occupying 

 relatively a much less important position than abroad, the reason, perhaps, being in 

 the fact that because of the greater diversity of valuable tree species there is less 

 need of giving especial attention to any one. Another reason may be found in the 

 certainty that the chestnut is not yet fully appreciated, nor its many virtues and 

 capabilities fully known. Among the broad-leaved trees it is hard to find its equal. 

 It is a rapid grower on soils of good or medium quality, forms a vigorous coppice 

 (root sprouts), yields a wood which, because of the tannic acid it contains, is very 

 durable in contact with the ground, and is very valuable for fuel, fence-posts, cross- 

 ties, telegraph poles and interior house furnishing, while last, and perhaps most 

 important, it yields a fruit in the form of a very valuable nut. 



Until quite recently the nut has not been accorded anything like its true value ; 

 it has been considered as a luxury rather than as a valuable food product or article 

 of commerce. In clearing away the virgin forest the chestnut, along with the wal- 

 nut and hickory, has sometimes been left in the pasture lots and fence corners for 

 the sake of the wholesome crop of nuts which were sure to result. Trees, too, have 

 been planted near gateways and along roadsides for the sake of both shade and 

 fruit ; but anything like the systematic planting of chestnut orchards on a com- 

 mercial scale has not been extensively attempted until w'thin the last decade. 



The nuts which were produced on the native trees scattered through the pasture 

 lands and along the edge of the wood lots were not generally looked upon by the 

 farmer as possessing any value worthy of his attention. The squirrels and> the 

 children were usually the ones most interested, and it was often a question as to 

 whom fell the greater share. The squirrels, with an eye to the future, and a knowl- 

 edge that the chestnut is a valuable article of diet, assiduously stored away Urge 

 quantities of nuts where they would serve as a granary during the midwinter star- 



