OF FOREST-TREES.

3 59

I’n such plantations, and all others for avenues, you may set them from ch. vn r.thirty to ten feet distance, though they will grow much nearer, andshoot into poles, if, being tender, you cultivate them like the Ash, thenature of whose shade it resembles, since nothing affe&s much to growunder it. Some husbands tell me, that the young Chesnut-trees shouldnot be pruned or touched with any knife or edge-tool for the first threeor four years, but rather cropped or broken off, which I leave to fartherexperience ; however, many forbear to top them when they transplant.

4. The Chesnut being grafffed on the Walnut, Oak, or Beech, I havebeen told, will come exceedingly fair, and produce incomparable fruit; forthe Walnut and Chesnut on each other, it is probable, but I have netyet made a full attempt. They also speak of inoculating cherries on theChesnut-stock for a later fruit. In the mean-time, I wish we did moreuniversally propagate the Horse-Chesnut , which being easily increasedfrom layers, grows into a goodly standard, and Bears a most* gloriousflower, even in our cold country. This tree, so called from its curingbroken-winded horses, and other cattle, of coughs, .is now all the modefor the avenues to their country palaces in France , as appears by the lateSuperintendant’s plantation at Yaux. It was . first brought from Con-stantinople to Vienna, thence into Italy, and so to France ; but to us fromthe Levant more immediately, and flourishes so well, and grows sogoodly a tree in competent time,, that, by this alone, we might haveample encouragement to denizen other strangers amongst us. Oneinconvenience to which this beautiful tree is obnoxious, is, that it doe 3not well resist impetuous and stormy winds without damage 0 .

c This is the /ESCULUS ( hippo-castakum ) floribus heptandris. Sp. PI. 488. TheHORSE-chesnut.- It is of the clafs and order Heptandria Monogynia.

The Horse-Chesnut is a tree of singular beauty; the leaves are large, fine, andpalmated, 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 spikesof rich and beautiful flowers.

This tree is a native of the East, and is said to have been brought into Europe in.1610;at which time also the Laurel was introduced into the English gardens : But we havereason to believe that this, tree was brought from Constantinople , and made a denizenof England, almost an hundred years before the above-mentioned period.

The Horse-Chesnut is very proper to be planted for avenues or walks; but it isobjected to by some, on account of its leaves falling off early in the autumn. J3ut it should