AMERICAN CHESNUT. 
The Chesnut is little esteemed for fuel, and is not used in the cities of 
the United States : like the kindred species in Europe it is filled with air 
and snaps as it burns. The coal is excellent, and on some of the mountains 
of Pennsylvania where the Chesnut abounds, the woods in the neighborhood 
of the forges have been transformed into copses, which are cut every sixteen 
years for the furnaces. This period is sufficient to renew them, as the 
summer is warmer in America than in Europe, the atmosphere more moist, 
and consequently vegetation more rapid. The proprietors of forges in 
Virginia, in the upper part of the Carolinas and on the Holston, should, 
imitate the example by establishing copses of Chesnut and Oak. Besides 
the inducement of private gain, this measure would be attended with public 
benefit, by the economy of fuel, which is daily becoming scarcer and more 
costly. Among the Oaks, the Rock Chesnut Oak should be selected for 
this object, for reasons indicated in describing it. 
Chesnut copses are considered in France as the most valuable species of 
property : every seven years they are cut for hoops, and the largest branches 
serve for vine-props ; at the end of fourteen years they furnish hoops for 
large tubs, and at the age of twenty-five years they are fit for posts and 
for light timber. Lands of a middling quality, which would not have 
produced a rent of more than 4 dollars an acre, in this way yield a mean 
annual revenue of from 16 to 24 dollars. 
Different methods are pursued in forming the copses ; in the New Dic- 
tionary of Natural History the following is preferred : After the ground 
has been carefully loosened with the plough and the harrow, lines are drawn 
6 feet apart, in which holes about a foot in depth and in diameter are 
formed at the distance of 5 feet. A chesnut is placed in each corner of 
the holes, and covered with 3 inches of earth. As the soil has been thor- 
oughly subdued, the nuts will spring and strike root with facility. Early 
in the second year three of the young plants are removed from each hole, 
and only the most thriving is left. The third or fourth year, when the 
branches begin to interfere with each other, every second tree is suppressed. 
To insure its success, the plantation should be begun in March or April, 
with nuts that have been kept in the cellar during the winter in sand or 
vegetable mould, and that have already begun to germinate. 
The European Chesnut would be a valuable acquisition to many 7 parts 
of the United States. This tree produces the nuts called Marrons de Lyon , 
which are four times as large as the wild chesnuts of America, and which 
are sent from the vicinity of Lyons to every part of France and to the north 
of Europe; they were formerly exported also to the West Indies. Ken- 
tucky, West Tennessee, and the upper part of Virginia and the Carolinas 
are particularly interested in the introduction of this species. It already 
exists in the nurseries of Philadelphia and New York, and it is only neces- 
