1871 



THE WESTERN POMOLOGIST. 



6d 



valuable and profitable fruit, No other forest tree possesses the re-productive power of the chestnut. A 

 chestnut forest may be cut at any age and it will reproduce itself in six to ten years. We have seen 

 sprouts pushed up eight to ten feet 

 in a single season from the stumps 

 of trees cut the previous winter. 



It has been truly said of the 

 chestnut : "It is beautiful in bloom, 

 refreshing in the rich verdure of its 

 foliage, and satisfying in the abund- 

 ance of its sweet nuts. The farmer 

 wants it for timber, rails, posts, 

 fence stakes, hop poles, grape trellis 

 and stakes, and wood. A forest 

 once planted is established for all 

 time." 



HOW TO GROW THE CHESTNUT. 



The seed should be gathered 

 when it drops from the burr and 

 mixed with three parts of sandy 

 loam to one of the nuts, and stored 

 in a cool cellar for the winter. Fall 

 planting or burying out of doors 

 exposed to the frost, is unsafe, 

 though attended with success some- 

 times. The loam should be just 

 moist enough to retain the natural 

 moisture of the nut, so that the 

 meat will not shrink from the shell 

 The nuts may be boxed up fresh 

 from the burr and kept two or three 

 weeks without injury before pack- 

 ing in loam. 



NURSERY GROWING. 



For nursery growing, plant six 

 to eight inches apart in rows four 

 feet apart. The plants, when young, 

 are tender, and liable to injury from 

 a hot sun. The best protection is 

 thorough cultivation of the soil to 

 produce a vigorous growth, thereby 

 increasing the vital power of the 

 plant, and enable it to resist the ef- 

 fects of great heat. Late in Au- 

 tumn turn a furrow on either side 

 of the row up to the plants — hilling 

 them up four or five inches. In leaf and blossom op the chestnut. 



winter they will kill down to the surfBce line, but if well buried up, the plant will send up a new shoot 

 from below for the future tree. 



FOREST GROWING. 



For standard timber, or forest growing, lay off the ground as for corn and plant the nuts four feet 

 apart each way, and put a hill of potatoes between them one way. The potatoes will serve to show the 

 rows in cultivating. The second year, plant potatoes or beans the other way, and continue alternating 

 those crops until the trees are too large to admit of a crop. When large enough to be of service in 

 fencing, thin out by removing alternate rows each way — leaving the trees in a square of eight feet. If a 

 large growth and a permanent grove is desired, when the trees begin to crowd, repeat the thinning out 

 by again removing alternate rows — leaving the trees in squares of sixteen feet. Where hops are grown 

 we do not see why the Chestnut may not be profitably grown for poles. Where grown close together, as 

 in the nursery row, the trees run up very straight and slender. If well cared for, five or six years growth 



