63 THE NUT CULTUKIST. 



ing to be a natural provision to secure fertilization in 

 ease the earlier catkins failed. 



The genus Castanea, as now restricted, contains 

 shrubs and large trees, with simple, alternate deciduous 

 leaves, coarsely serrate, with pointed spiny teeth. In- 

 digenous, and widely distributed over northern Africa, 

 southern Europe, Asia and the eastern half of the 

 United States. 



The common English name of this nut is supposed 

 to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon cystel, chestnut, 

 and cyst-leam or cisten-beam, chestnut tree ; Old Eng- 

 lish, chastein or chestenj Old "German, chestinna or 

 hestinna; Modem G-erman, hestene or kastanie; French, 

 castaigne or chataigne; Provencal, castanha; Spanish, 

 castana; Italian, castagna, from the Latin castanea. 



History of the Chestnut. — The so-called Euro- 

 pean chestnut is supposed to be indigenous to Asia 

 Minor, Armenia, Caucasus and northern Africa, and 

 from these countries it Avas introduced and became nat- 

 uralized throughout the greater part of temperate Eu- 

 rope, where it has been cultivated from time immemo- 

 rial. The Romans are supposed to have distributed it 

 northward through Prance and Great Britain, and in 

 the latter country there were trees centuries ago of such 

 large size that many of the early English authors claimed 

 this tre6 was indigenous. But in the absence of any 

 natural forests of chestnut, the claim had to be aban- 

 doned. In parts of Prance, Italy and Spain, the chest- 

 nut has become thoroughly naturalized and, as we may 

 say, run wild, but as one of the early investigators says, 

 in speaking of the abundance of old chestnut trees on 

 the Apennines, they are generally scattered over the 

 surface like trees on a well-arranged lawn, and not 

 crowded and massed, as they would be in a state of 

 nature or in a forest. On the south side of the Alps the 

 trees grow up to an altitude of twenty-five hundred feet. 



