160 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
Sweet Chestnut. 
French, Chdtaigner commun. German, Essbare Kastanie. 
The swect chestnut is probably not indigenous to Britain, but it must have been 
introduced at a very early period, and is said to have been brought to Europe by the 
Greeks from Sardis in Asia Minor, about 504 3.c. Theophrastus mentions that in 
his time Mount Olympus was nearly covered with chestnut trees, and Pliny enume- 
rates eight kinds that were known to the Romans in his day. He tells us that 
chestnuts were ground into flour and made into bread by the poor. The chestnut 
tree grows in Britain to as large a size as the oak, which, when old, it somewhat 
resembles. It is probable that the sweet chestnut was introduced into Britain in 
the time of the Romans for the sake of its fruit; there are some old trees still 
standing which were probably planted at that time. A fine old tree at Tortworth, in 
Gloucestershire, is mentioned in a record of the time of Stephen as of great age, 
forming one of the boundaries of the manor, and is supposed by Strutt to have been 
in existence in the time of Egbert, more than a thousand years ago. The oldest tree in 
the neighbourhood of London is that at Cobham, in Kent, and the town of Cheshunt, 
in Hertfordshire, is said to have derived its name from the number of chestnut trees 
that formerly grew there. 
It would seem, however, that at one time chestnut trees were comparatively scarce 
in England, for in an old tract entitled, “An Old Thrift Newly Revived,” published in 
1612, the author recommends planting the chestnut “as a kind of timber tree, of 
which few grow in England,” and which, he adds, will not only produce “ large and 
excellent good timber, but good fruit, that poore people, in time of dearth, may, with a 
small quantitie of oats or barley, make bread of.” He also adds, “ When you first 
begin to plant it, it will grow more in one yeare than an oake will doe in two. Mr. 
Loudon tells us that Hartlib, who wrote early in the seventeenth century, says, “In 
divers places of Kent, as in and about Gravesend, in the countrey and elsewhere, 
very many prime timbers of these old barns and houses are of chestnut wood ; and | 
yet there is now scarce a chestnut tree ‘within twenty miles of the place, and the 
people altogether ignorant of such trees. This showeth that in former times those 
places did abound with such timber.” 
In the year 1676 an ancestor of the family of Wyndham, of Felbrigg, in Norfolk, 
was said to be a great planter of chestnuts, which in about fifty years’ time were 
thinned and applied to useful purposes. The tree, however, was comparatively 
neglected till the end of the last century, when the Society of Arts, reviving the idea 
that the carpentry of many of our old buildings consisted of chestnut wood, offered 
rewards for planting the tree, and these were given to a number of individuals who 
made plantations of it. Much of the wood, however, that is supposed to be chestnut 
in our old buildings is now thought to be oak, and Buffon demonstrates that oak- 
wood, after a number of years, puts on the appearance of chestnut ; and in 1780 two 
French observers, Fougeroux and Daubenton, showed that the wood of Quercus 
sessiliflora had been constantly mistaken for that of the sweet chestnut. This error 
has given the chestnut wood a reputation for durability which it does not deserve. 
Evelyn observes, “ The chestnut is, next the oak, one of the most sought after by the 
carpenter and joiner. It hath formerly built a good part of our ancient houses in 
the City of London, as doth yet appear.” The author of the “Sylva” adds, “If the 
timber be dipped in scalding oil and well pitched, it becomes extremely durable, but 
otherwise I cannot celebrate the tree for its sincerity, it being found that, contrary 
