1988

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART HI.

from the rain. ( Hoael , Voyage en Sidle, tom. ii. p. 79.) The author adds,however, that the Spanish queen’s visit is somewhat apocryphal. The treeitself, when visited by M. Houel, was in a state of decay: it had lost thegreater part of its branches, and its trunk was quite hollow. A house waserected in the interior, with some country people living in it, with an oven, inwhich, according to the custom of the country, they dried chestnuts, filberts,and other fruits, which they wished to preserve for winter use; using as fuel,when they could find no other, pieces cut with a hatchet from the interior ofthe tree. In Brydone’s time, in 1770, this tree measured 204 ft. in circum-ference. He says that it had the appearance of five distinct trees; but that hewas assured that the space was once filled with solid timber, and that therewas no bark in the inside. This circumstance of an old trunk, hollow in theinterior, becoming separated, so as to have the appearance of being theremains of several distinct trees, is frequently met with in the case of very oldmulberry trees in Britain, and olive trees in Italy . Kircher, about a centurybefore Brydone, affirms that an entire flock of sheep might be enclosed withinthe Etna chestnut as in a fold. The sweet chestnut was, in all probability,introduced into Britain in the time of the Romans, for the sake of its fruit ;and, being a tree of great duration, and ripening its fruit, it could hardlyfail to become a permanent inhabitant. The old chestnut tree at Tortworth

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(Jig. 1924., to a scale of 1 in. to 12 ft.) may, indeed, possibly have been oneof those planted by the Romans. The oldest chestnut tree in the neigh-bourhood of London is that at Cobham, in Kent , of which Jig. 1925. is aportrait, to a scale of 1 in. to 12 ft. Cambden mentions that Cowdray Park,in Sussex, was famous in his time for its chestnut trees; and the town ofCheshunt, in Hertfordshire , is supposed to have derived its name from thenumber of chestnut trees that formerly grew there. Old Tusser, in 1562,enumerates chestnuts, in his list of fruit trees which may be transplanted inJanuary; and Lord Bacon mentions the chestnut in his Essay on Plantations.The tree, however, if once plentiful, appears soon to have become compara-tive scarcely; for the author of a tract entitled An old Thrift newly revived,published in 1612, recommends planting the chestnut as a “ kind of timbertree of which few grow in England;” and which, he adds, will not only pro-duce “ large and excellent good timber,” but “ good fruit, that poore peopj,®;in time of dearth, may, with a small quantitie of oats or barley, make bread of.He also says that a chestnut tree, “ when you begin first to plant it, will gro' vmore in one yeare, than an oake will doe in two.” (p. 7.) Mr. Samuel Harthb,