THE CHESTNUT. 



9 



the produce, with the exception of a tithe, was 

 considered so important as to be reserved by the 

 king. Had the tree been, as Evelyn surmises, 

 abundant near London, the forest of Dean would 

 scarcely have been laid under contribution; the 

 fact, therefore, that Chestnuts are mentioned at all 

 would afford evidence rather that they were rare 

 and consequently valuable, than that they were 

 common forest trees. 



On the whole then we may, I think, with reason 

 conclude that the chestnut, though long natural- 

 ized in England, is not an aboriginal native, but 

 was introduced probably by the Romans at a very 

 early period, and in process of time propagated 

 itself so widely as to have raised a doubt whether 

 it was not a really native tree. Its history may 

 be briefly told as follows. It was first introduced 

 into Europe by the Greeks from Sardis in Asia 

 Minor, whence it was called the Sardian nut,"^ 

 and at a later period, ^'Jupiter's nut,"f and 

 husked nut" from its being enclosed in a husk 

 or rind instead of a shell. Loudon, and several 

 other authorities, from a misconception of a pas- 

 sage in Pliny, or, more likely, from quoting it at 

 second hand, attribute the introduction of this 

 tree into Italy to Tiberius Caesar, a gross inac- 

 curacy, for it is evident from the writings of Vir- 

 gil that chestnuts were abundant in Italy long 

 before the time of that emperor. By the Romans 

 it was called Castanea, from Castanum, a town of 

 Magnesia, in Thessaly, where it grew in great 

 abundance, and from which it is said that they 

 first brought it. Pliny enumerates several varieties, 

 the best of which he says grew at Tarentum and 



* Sardianus balanus. Plin. -f ^^^^ [5a\dvo$> Theoph. 



