OF FOREST-TREES. 



159 



In such plantations and all others for avenues, you may set them from ch. 

 thirty to ten feet distance, though they will grow nmch nearer, and 

 shoot into poles, if, being tender, you cultivate them like the Ash, the 

 nature of whose shade it resembles, since nothing affects much to grow 

 under it. Some husbands tell me, that the young Chestnut-trees should 

 not be pruned or touched with any knife or edge-tool for the first three 

 or four years, but rather cropped or broken oflT, which I leave to farther 

 experience ; however many forbear to top them when they transplant. 



4. The Chestnut being graffed on the Walnut, Oak, or Beech, I have 

 been told, will come exceedingly fair, and produce incomparable fruit ; for 

 the Walnut and Chestnut on each other, it is probable^ but I have not 

 yet made a full attempt. They also speak of inoculating cherries on the 

 Chestnut-stock for a later fruit. In the mean-time, I wish we did more 

 universally propagate the Horse-Chestnut, which being easily increased 

 from layers, grows into a goodly standard, and bears a most glorious 

 flower, even in our cold country. This tree, so called from its curing 

 broken-winded horses, and other cattle, of coughs, is now all the mode 

 for the avenues to their country palaces in France, as appears by the late 

 Superintendent's plantation at Vaux. It was first brought from Con- 

 stantinople to Vienna, thence into Italy, and so to France ; but to us from 

 the Levant more immediately, and flourishes so well, and grows so 

 goodly a tree in competent time, that, by this alone, we might have 

 ample encouragement to denizen other strangers amongst us. One 

 inconvenience to which this beautiful tree is obnoxious, is, that it does 

 not well resist impetuous and stormy winds without damage 



This is the -iESCULUS Chippo-castanvm ) floribus heptandris. Sp, PI, 488. The 

 HORSE-CHESTNUT. It is of the class and order Hepiandria Monogynia. 



The Horse-Chestnut is a tree of singular beauty ; the leaves are large, fine, and 

 palmated, and appear very early in the spring. It is naturally uniform in its growth, 

 always forming its head into a regular parabola. In the spring it produces long spikes 

 of rich and beautiful flowers. 



This tree is a native of the East, and is said to have been brought into Europe in l6lO ; 

 at which time also the Laurel was introduced into the English gardens: But we have 

 reason to believe that this tree was brought from Constantinople, and made a denizen 

 of England, almost an hundred years before the above-mentioned period. 



The Horse-Chestnut is very proper to be planted for avenues or walks ; but it is 

 objected to by some, on account of its leaves falling off early in the autumn. But it should 



