SECTION XIY. 



483 



things of which the latter seems considerably the more probable of the 

 two. But it is proper that, in all such cases, the necessary experiments 

 should be made by nurserymen or planters, and the facts verified in 

 a sufficient manner, before any thing new in practice be recommended 

 to the public. Were such a principle adopted by writers in general on 

 this subject, their treatises would gain more credit than they have 

 hitherto done with the practical planter, and the planter would benefit 

 more frequently by their treatises. 



Note V. Page 888. 



The fact is, that as the male flowers of the Chestnut are collected in 

 long ratkins, and those of the Beech are globular ; and further, as the 

 fruit of the latter is triangular, there is sufficient reason to treat of 

 them as separate trees. The class and order of both is, according to the 

 Linnaean arrangement, Monoecia polyandria^ and is thus described by 

 botanists. — Fagus castanea, foliis lanceolatis acuminato-serratis^ suhtas 

 Qiudis, aculeis fructus compositis implexis. — Linn. Spec. Plant. 1416. — 

 Smith, Flor. Britan., t. iii. p. 1027. Prof. Marty n in voce. 



Note VI. Page 339. 



Evelyn is of opinion, from the great age of which the Chestnut 

 appeared to be in his time, that it is a native of Britain ; in which, how- 

 ever, he is mistaken. The learned Dr Ducarel adopted the same senti- 

 ment on similar grounds ; and in a celebrated controversy with the 

 late Daines Barrington, before the Royal Society, maintained that the 

 tree was indigenous. He produced evidence as old as Henry II., in a 

 charter of that period, by which Roger Earl of Hereford grants to the 

 Abbey of Flexley, "the tithe of all his Chestnuts in the Forest of 

 Dean." See four letters on the Chestnut, read before the Royal Society 

 Nov. 1771. 



Note VII. Page 889. 



The Chestnut grows to an immense size in the southern countries of 

 Europe. Brydone tells us, that he measured the celebrated Chestnut, 

 standing at the foot of Mount ^tna, named Castagno di Cento Cavalli, 

 and that he found it to be two hundred and four feet, or sixty-eight 

 yards round. In the southern counties of England the tree attains 

 great magnitude. At Beechnorth Castle, in Surrey, there are not 

 fewer than seventy or eighty Chestnuts, measuring from twelve to 

 eighteen and twenty feet in girth. In the park adjoining to the 

 garden at Great Cawford in Dorsetshire, are four large Chestnuts, one 



