SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



Chestnuts are mostly grafted, when cultivated for the 

 sake of their fruit. There is a passage on this subject 

 in Virgil, which has occasioned much dispute among the 

 learned : — 



Et steriies piatani raalos gessere valentes ; 



Castaneae fagus, ornusque incanuit albo 



Flore piri." Qg^^g^ -^^ 



Some suppose this passage to signify that the beech 

 has been grafted on the Chestnut : others considering it 

 an absurdity to graft a tree upon one of superior value, 

 read it differently, and beheve it to mean, that the 

 Chestnut was grafted on the beech. Upon which Mar- 

 tyn observes, that he sees no reason to reject the first, 

 which is the common reading, since the fruit of the 

 Chestnut-tree was very Kttle esteemed in VirgiFs time. 

 Pliny wonders that nature should take such care of them 

 as to defend them with a prickly husk, whereas the mast 

 of the beech was reckoned a sweet nut ; and men are said 

 to have been sustained by it on a siege. The tree itself, 

 too, Avas held in high veneration, and vessels made of it 

 were used in the Roman sacrifices*. 



In another passage the Roman poet alludes to its lofty 

 growth. In speaking of the different manner in which 

 trees are raised, he says — 



" Pars autem posito surgunt de semine : ut altse 

 CastanesBj nemorumque Jovi qufe maxima frondet 

 iEsculus — " 



Georgic ii. 



" Some are produced by seeds ; as the lofty chestnuts^ and the 

 esculus, AV'hich has the largest leaves of all the groves of Jupiter." 



Martyn's Translation. 



Sse Martyn's Virgil. 



