328 CASTANEA. 



or thirty-five years' 1 old, the whole of the bole converted 

 into heart-wood, with the exception of two or three of the 

 outermost rings. In appearance and colour the wood bears 

 a resemblance to that of the oak, but may always be 

 distinguished by its want of the large laminae (flash) or 

 transverse fibres, which are seen in the oak, particularly 

 when cut perpendicular on the outside, in the plane of 

 these laminae. 



For gate and other posts, railing, spars for building, 

 piles, and various other purposes not requiring wood of 

 large size, it is well adapted, and perhaps as durable 

 as any other timber we possess. It also makes excellent 

 barrel-staves, and as an underwood produces a large crop 

 of strong and durable hop poles, for which express purpose 

 it is in some districts cultivated to a considerable extent, 

 the stools continuing to throw up a succession of shoots, 

 when cut over for a long series of years. The precocity, 

 if we may so term it, of the Chesnut places it high in 

 the list of those trees we deem best adapted to insert in 

 mixed plantations, particularly where the oak is intended 

 to form the ultimate crop ; for, in addition to the valuable 

 properties of its wood from a very early age, which, there- 

 fore, render it particularly adapted for an intermediate occu- 

 pant, or one that has finally to give place and room to others, 

 it is, from its habit and mode of growth among that class 

 of trees least liable to injure the oak by its propinquity. 

 In this latter respect, we consider it nearly on a par with 

 the sycamore or the cerris oak, its growth in plantations 

 being upright, stiff, and unyielding to the wind, the rami- 

 fication thin and open, and the head tapering and narrow, 

 rather than spreading, and this form it usually retains 

 till of age to be cut down, which ought seldom to ex- 



