FAG 
F A I 
F A L 
rows. If these trees have a downright tap- 
root, it should be cut off, especially if they 
are intended to be removed again : this will 
occasion their putting out lateral shoots, and 
render them less subject to miscarry when 
they are removed for good. The time ge- 
nerally allowed them in the nursery is three 
or four years, according to their growth ; but 
I the younger they are transplanted the better 
they will succeed. Young trees of this sort 
are very apt to have crooked stems ; but 
when they are transplanted out, and have 
room to grow, as they increase in bulk they 
i will grow more upright, and their stems will 
become straight, as f have frequently ob- 
served where there have been great planta- 
tions.” Ilanbury follows Millar almost li- 
terally, except that he mentions February as 
| the time of sowing ; and recommends that 
the young plants, a year after they have 
been planted in the nursery, be cut down to 
within an inch of the ground ; which (he 
says) “ will cause them to shoot vigorously 
with one strong and straight stem.” There is 
one material objection against sowing che's- 
nuts in drills, which are well known to serve 
as guides or conductors to the field-mouse, 
who will run from one end to the other of a 
drill without letting a single nut escape her: 
we rather recommend setting them with a 
dibble, either promiscuously or in quincunx, 
at about six inches distance. Evelyn says, 
that coppices of chesnuts may be thickened 
by layering the tender young shoots ; but 
adds, that “ such as spring from the nuts 
and marrons are best of all.” There is a 
striped-leaved variegation which is continued 
by budding ; and the French are said to 
graft chesnuts for their fruit ; but Millar says, 
such grafted trees are unfit for timber. The 
chesnut will thrive upon almost any soil 
which lies out of the water’s way ; but dis- 
likes wet moorv land. 
The method of propagating the dwarf- 
chesimt is from seeds, which we receive from 
America. These should be planted in drills, 
as soon as they arrive, in a moist bed of rich 
garden-mould. If the 'seeds are good thev 
will come up pretty soon in the spring. Af- 
ter they appear they will require no trouble, 
except keeping them clean from weeds, and 
watering them in dry weather. They may 
stand in the seed-bed two years, and be af- 
terwards planted in the nursery ground, at a 
foot asunder, and two feet distance in the 
rows ; and here when they are got strong 
plants they will be fit for any purpose. 
In stateliness and grandeur of outline the 
beech excels the oak. Its foiiage is pecu- 
liarly soft and pleasing to the eye ; its 
branches are numerous and spreading ; and 
its stem grows to a great size. The bark of 
the beech is remarkably smooth, and of a 
silvery cast : this, added" to the splendour and 
smoothness of its foliage, gives a striking 
neatness and delicacy to its general appear- 
ance. The beech therefore, standing sin- 
gly, and suffered to form its own natural 
head, is highly ornamental: and its leaves 
varying their hue as the autumn approaches, 
renders it in this point of view still more de- 
sirable. In respect of actual use the beech 
follows next to the oak and the ash : it is al- 
most as necessary to the cabinet-maker and 
turner as the oak is to the shipbuilder, or the 
ash to the plough and cart-wright. • Evelyn 
nevertheless condemns it in pointed and ge- 
neral terms; because “ where it lies dry, or 
wet and dry, it is exceedingly obnoxious to 
the worm.” He adds, however, “ but be- 
ing put ten days in water it will exceedingly 
resist the worm.” The natural sod and situa- 
tion of the beech are upon dry, chalky, or 
limestone heights: it grows to a great size 
upon the -hills of Surry and Kent; as also 
upon the declivities of the Cotswold and 
Stroudwater hills of Gloucestershire, and 
flourishes exceedingly upon the bleak 
banks of the Wye, in Hereford and Mon- 
mouth shires ; where it is much used in 
making charcoal. In situations like those, 
and where it is not already prevalent, the 
beech, whether as a timber-tree or as an un- 
derwood, is an object worthy the planter’s 
attention. 
The mast, or seeds, yield a good oil for 
lamps ; and are a very agreeable food to 
squirrels, mice, and swine. 'The fat of swine 
fed with them, however, is soft, and boils 
away, unless, hardened by some other food. 
The leaves gathered in autumn, before they 
are much injured by the frosts, make much 
better mattrasses than straw or chaff, and 
last for seven or eight years. The nuts, when 
eaten by the human species, occasion giddi- 
ness and headache ; but when well dried and 
powdered they make wholesome bread. 
They are sometimes roasted, and substituted 
for coffee. The poor people in Silesia use 
the expressed oil instead of butter. 
The chesnut-tree sometimes grows to an 
immense size. The largest in the known 
world are those which grow upon mount 
/Etna in Sicily. At Tortworth in Glouces- 
tershire is a chesnut-tree 52 feet round. It 
is proved to have stood there ever since the 
year 1 150, and was then so remarkable that 
it was called the great chesnut of Tortworth. 
It fixes the boundary of the manor, and is 
probably near 1000 years old. As an orna- 
mental, the chesnut, though unequal to the 
oak and beech, has a degree of grandeur be- 
longing to it which recommends it strongly 
to the planter’s attention. Its uses have been 
highly extolled, and it may deserve a con- 
siderable share of the praise which has been 
given it. As a substitute for the oak it is 
preferable to the elm for door-jambs, win- 
dow-frames, and some other purposes ot the 
house-carpenter : it is nearly equal to oak it- 
self; but it is very apt to be shaky, and there 
is a deceitful brittleness in it which renders 
it unsafe to be used as beams, or in any other 
situation where an uncertain load is required 
to be borne. It is. universally allowed to be 
excellent for liquor-casks ; as not being liable 
to shrink, nor to change the colour otthe li- 
quor it contains : it is also strongly recom- 
mended as an underwood for hop-poles, 
stakes, &c. Its fruit too is valuable, not only 
for swine and deer, but as human food: bread 
is said to have been made of it. Upon the 
whole, the chesnut, whether in the light of 
ornament or use, is undoubtedly an object of 
the planter’s notice. 
FAILLlS, in heraldry, a French term de- 
noting some failure or fraction in an ordinary, 
as if it was broken, or a splinter taken from 
it. 
FAIR, a greater kind of market, granted 
to a town, by privilege, for the more speedy 
and commodious providing of such things as 
the place stands in need ofi 
It is incident to a fair, that persons shall 
693 
be free from being arrested in it for any othet 
debt or contract than what was contracted in 
the same, or at least promised to be paid 
there. Also proclamation is to be made, how 
long they are to continue; and no person shall 
sell any goods after the time of the fair is 
ended, on forfeiture of double the value, one 
fourth to the prosecutor, and the rest to the 
king. There is atoll usually paid in fairs, on. 
the sale of things, and for stallage, picage, &c. 
Fairs abroad are either free, or charged 
with toll and imposition. The privileges of 
free fairs consist chiefly, first, in that all 
traders, &c. whether natives or foreigners, 
are allowed to enter the kingdom, and are 
under the royal protection, exempt from du- 
ties, impositions, tolis, & c. Secondly, that 
merchants, in going or returning, cannot be 
molested or arrested, or their goods stopped. 
They are established by letters-patent from 
the prince. Fairs, particularly free fairs, 
make a very considerable article in the com- 
merce of Europe, especially that of the Medi- 
teranean,and inland parts of Germany, &c. 
The principal British fairs are, 1. Stur- 
bridge-fair, near Cambridge, by far the great- 
est in Britain, and perhaps in the world. 2. 
Bristol has two fairs, very near as great as 
that of Sturbridge. 3. Exeter. 4. West 
Chester. 5. Edinburgh. 6. Wheyhill ; 
and, 7. Burford-fair, both for sheep. 8. 
Pancras-fair, in Staffordshire, for saddle-horses. 
9. Bartholomew-fair, at London, for lean and 
Welsh black cattle. 10. St. Faith’s, in Nor- 
folk, for Scotch runts. 1 1 . Yarmouth fish- 
ing-fair for herrings, the only fishing-fair in 
Great Britain. l‘J. Ipswich butter-fair. 13. 
Woodborough-hill, in Dorsetshire, for west- 
country manufactures, as kerseys, druggets, 
& c. 14. Two cheese-fairs at Chipping Nor- 
ton : with innumerable other fairs, besides 
weekly markets, for all sorts of goods, as well 
our own as of foreign growth. 
Among the principal free fairs in France 
were those of St. Germains, Lyons, Rheims, 
Chartres, Rouen, Bourdeaux, Troyes,. Bay- 
onne, Dieppe, &c. 
The most noted fairs in Germany are those 
of Francfort, Leipsic, and Nurenburg; not 
only on account of the great trade, but the 
vast concourse of princes of the empire, no- 
bility, and people, who come to them from 
all parts of Germany to partake of the di- 
versions. 
FAIRY-circle, or ring, a phenomenon 
frequent in the fields, &c. supposed by the 
vulgar to be traced by the fairies in their 
dances: there are two kinds of it; one -of 
about seven yards in diameter, containing a 
round bare path, a foot broad, with green 
grass in the middle of it. The other is ot 
different bigness, encompassed with a cir- 
cumference of grass, greener and fresher 
than that in the middle. Mess. Jessop and 
Walker, in the Philosophical ^Transact, as- 
cribed them to lightning: we have however 
examined them ourselves, and are convinced 
they are produced by a kind of fungus which 
breaks and pulverizes the soil ; why this ve- 
getable should put forth its offsets in this kind 
of circular direction we cannot rightly ac- 
count. The circles however are seldom com- 
plete, and often very irregular.* 
FAKE, among sailors, signifies one round 
or circle of a cable or hawser, coiled up out 
of the way. 
FALCATED, something in the form of a 
