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XXIII. On the Horticultural Management of the Sweet or 

 Spanish Chestnut Tree. By the Right Hon. Sir Joseph 

 Banks, Bart. K. B. P. R. S. Sfc. 



Read February 7, 1809- 



In all the northern parts of Europe, where Chestnuts are 

 used for food, the practice of grafting the trees that bear 

 them has been known from time immemorial ; the wild or 

 ungrafted Chestnut is called in French Chdtaignier, the 

 grafted or cultivated sort, Maronnier. 



Though the grafting of Chestnuts has been little, if at all 

 used in this part of the island, it is not an uncommon prac- 

 tice in Devonshire, and other western counties. The nursery- 

 men there deal in grafted Chestnut trees, and the gentlemen 

 have no doubt introduced them into their gardens. 



About sixteen years ago, Sir William Watson sent some 

 of these grafted trees from Devonshire to Spring Grove, with 

 an assurance that the fruit would be plentiful and good. 

 They were at first neglected, and ill-treated, owing to the 

 disinclination most gardeners have to the introduction of 

 novelties, the management of which they are unacquainted 

 with : it was therefore six or seven years before they began 

 to bear fruit. 



Since that time, as the trees have increased in size, the 

 crop has every year become more abundant ; last autumn 



