THE CHESTNUT. 



229 



Marron de la Briga, a district upon the 

 Italian frontier where quite the best fruits 

 are grown. Other named sorts are Num- 

 60, a hardy and fertile tree, early and 

 with good fruits ripening in September; 

 Paragon, fertile, fruit large and of good 

 quality; Les Hitminaux, La Matronne, 

 and La Corrive. Beside these kinds 

 grown for their fruits there are a few 

 garden forms distinguished by differ- 

 ences in their habit and leaf- form, some 

 of which are distinct, and several worth- 

 less variegated sorts. 



Culture. — The fruiting Chestnuts 

 grown for fruit are raised from seed, the 

 young plants being grafted when three 

 to four years old and planted finally 

 when 6 to 8 feet high. As with all de- 

 ciduous trees, this must be done in late 

 autumn or winter. Beyond what is neces- 

 sary pruning is unfavourable and trees 

 grown for fruit must have a warm and 

 sheltered position or the nuts will fail to 

 ripen; this they do, according to climate 

 and variety, from September to Novem- 

 ber, falling to the ground, where they are 

 gathered up, stripped of the shell, and 

 laid in an open shed to dry and mature, 

 turning them from time to time. The 

 choice fruits are often dried upon trays 

 placed in the sun and housed at night, 

 or even in special ovens for the purpose. 

 A fertile full-grown tree will produce a 

 hundredweight of nuts in a good season, 

 but it does not reach such a size under 

 fifty years, though plants frequently bear 

 at ten to fifteen years if from suckers, 

 and fifteen to twenty from the graft. Its 

 growth in England is yet slower, and, 

 save on warm soils, its fruit too often fails 

 to ripen well. When mature the trunk is 



very apt to decay, particularly in heavy 

 soils, but, like the Willow, the tree may 

 last for many years even after this has 

 taken place. 



Enemies. — The Chestnut is unhap- 

 pily exposed to the attack of quite an 

 army of enemies, insect and otherwise, 

 though fortunately the greater number 

 of these are unknown to this country. 

 The leaves are sometimes injured by a 

 fungoid parasite appearing in minute 

 black spots upon their surface and caus- 

 ing their premature fall ; but the most 

 threatening danger is due to a mysterious 

 root-decay known as " Ink, or Black 

 Foot," set up by causes as yet unex- 

 plained. Appearing in Brittany some 

 half-century ago, it has slowly spread 

 until it now causes loss in all parts, in- 

 cluding the Azores in mid-ocean. The 

 cause of the disease seems to be a root- 

 parasite, whose presence transforms the 

 sap into a corrupt black fluid, and as the 

 enemy gains ground the tree perishes, 

 sometimes with startling suddenness. 

 Serious loss is already due to this cause, 

 and until the pest is itself known there 

 seems small hope of cure ; up to the 

 present all efforts have failed to fix its 

 precise nature. 



Simplicity of Plan in Small Gardens. — Our 

 suburban gardeners in London wind about their 

 little bit of gravel walk and grass plot in ridiculous 

 imitation of an ugly big garden of the landscape- 

 gardening style, and then with a strange perversity 

 fill up the spaces with the most formal plants they 

 can get ; whereas the merest common-sense should 

 have taught them to lay out their morsel of ground 

 in the simplest way, to fence it as orderly as might 

 be, one part from the other— if it be big enough for 

 that — and the whole from the road, and then to fill 

 up the flower-growing space with things that are free 

 and interesting in their growth, leaving Nature to do 

 the desired complexity, which she will certainly not 

 fail to do. — William Morris. 



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