536 BULLETIN 347 
tanning extract.” For 1907 the value of the chestnut used in the latter 
products amounted to $1,619,785 for poles, about $3,500,000 for ties, 
$2,560,007 for tanning extract, and $377,880 for slack-cooperage. The 
total value for all chestnut used in the products reported amounted to 
$19,188,219 in 1907. The later reports show but little variation from these 
figures for the yearly consumption. Unfortunately value computations 
are omitted in the reports for 1910 and 1911. For 1909 the total value 
of the chestnut cut, according to the reports, amounted to $19,098,581. 
Besides its commercial value the chestnut has been utilized in its 
natural range as a much-favored ornamental. Many large estates in 
New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut valued their 
chestnut trees very highly. As an orchard tree the varieties of the Ameri- 
can and the foreign species are of relatively less economic importance. 
The chinquapin, except as a variety for nut production, is of little com- 
mercial value. ; 
The chestnut tree is our most important source of tanning extract. 
We know of no rapidly growing species that could be economically sub- 
stituted in case of its extinction. The result of this would inevitably 
be a material increase in the cost of tanning leather. 
SOIL REQUIREMENTS 
Concerning the soil requirements of the chestnut, Zon’ states: 
“Chestnut is not very exacting in its demands upon the nutritive 
substances of the soil, but requires that it be deep, fresh, loose, and 
moderately fertile. The development of chestnut seems to depend more 
on the situation and the physical conditions of the soil than on its chemical 
composition. A moderate amount of clay, though not enough to inter- 
fere with the looseness of the soil, together with some potassium and 
lime, sttits the species best. 
“ Chestnut is a deep-rooted species, which derives its nutrition from the 
lower layers of earth — a fact explaining its vigorous growth on exposures 
with poor surface soil.” 
NATURAL REPRODUCTION 
Quoting further from Zon: ‘The conditions for the reproduction. of 
chestnut from seed are very unfavorable. The presence of man, who 
has made a business of gathering and selling chestnuts, of hogs, which 
seek them greedily, and of coppice chestnut and other hardwoods, under 
whose dense shade the chestnut seedlings must come up, renders repro- 
duction from seed almost impossible.’’ 
7Zon, Raphael. Chestnut in southern Maryland. U.S. Forestry Bur, Bul. 5321-31. 1904. 
