_Of the Chesnut._
1. The next is the chesnut, [_castanea_] of which Pliny reckons many
kinds, especially about Tarentum and Naples; Janus Cornarius, upon that
of Aetius, (_verbo_ Δρῦς) speaks of the Lopimi, as a nobler kind, such
as the _Euboicæ_, which the Italians call _maroni_, _quasi castaneæ
maris_; but we commend those of Portugal or Bayonne, chusing the
largest, brown, and most ponderous for fruit, such as Pliny calls
_coctivæ_, but the lesser ones to raise for timber. They are produc’d
best by sowing and setting; previous to which, let the nuts be first
spread to sweat, then cover them in sand; a month being past, plunge
them in water, reject the swimmers; being dry’d, for thirty days more,
sand them again, and to the water-ordeal as before. Being thus treated
till the beginning of Spring, or in November, set them as you would do
beans; and as some practise it, drench’d for a night or more, in new
milk; but without half this preparation, they need only be put into the
holes with the point upmost, as you plant tulips; Pliny will tell you
they come not up, unless four or five be pil’d together in a hole; but
that is false, if they be good, as you may presume all those to be which
pass this examination; nor will any of them fail: But being come up,
they thrive best unremoved, making a great stand for at least two years
upon every transplanting; yet if needs you must alter their station, let
it be done about November, and that into a light friable ground, or
moist gravel, however they will grow even in clay, sand, and all mixed
soils, upon exposed and bleak places, and the pendent declivities of
hills to the north, in dry airy places, and sometimes (tho’ not so well)
near marshes and waters; but they affect no other compost, save what
their own leaves afford them, and are more patient of cold than heat: As
for their sowing in the nursery, treat them as you are taught in the
wall-nut.
2. If you design to set them in Winter, or Autumn, I counsel you to
interr them within their husks, which being every way arm’d, are a good
protection against the mouse, and a providential integument. Pliny l.
15. c. 23. from this natural guard, concludes them to be excellent food,
and doubtless Cæsar thought so, when he transported them from Sardis
first into Italy, whence they were propagated into France, and thence
among us; another encouragement to make such experiments out of foreign
countries. Some sow them confusedly in the furrow like the acorn, and
govern them as the oak; but then would the ground be broken up ’twixt
November and February; and when they spring, be clensed, and thinn’d two
foot asunder, after two years growth: Likewise may copses of chesnuts be
wonderfully increased and thickned, by laying the tender and young
branches; but such as spring from the nuts and marrons, are best of all,
and will thrive exceedingly, if (being let stand without removing) the
ground be stirr’d, and loosened about their roots, for two or three of
the first years, and the superfluous wood prun’d away; and indeed for
good trees, they should be shrip’d up after the first year’s removal;
they also shoot into gallant poles from a felled stem: Thus will you
have a copse ready for a felling, within eight years, which (besides
many other uses) will yield you incomparable poles for any work of the
garden, vineyard or hopyard, till the next cutting: And if the tree like
the ground, will in ten or twelve years grow to a kind of timber, and
bear plentiful fruit.
3. I have seen many chesnut-trees transplanted as big as my arm, their
heads cut off at five and six foot height; but they came on at leisure:
In such plantations, and all others for avenues, you may set them from
thirty to ten foot distance, though they will grow much 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 chesnut-trees should not
be pruned or touched with any knife or edge-tool, for the first three or
four years, but rather cropp’d or broken off, which I leave to farther
experience; however, many forbear to top them, when they transplant.
4. The chesnut being graffed in the wallnut, oak, or beech, (I have
been told) will come exceeding fair, and produce incomparable fruit; for
the wallnut, and chesnut in each other, it is probable; but I have not
as yet made a full attempt; they also speak of inoculating cherries in
the chesnut-stock for a later fruit. In the mean time, I wish we did
more universally propagate the horse-chesnut, which being easily
increas’d from layers, grows into a good standard, and bears a most
glorious flower, even in our cold country: This tree (so call’d, for the
cure of horses broken-winded, and other cattel of coughs) is now all the
mode for the avenues to their countrey palaces in France, as appears by
the late Superintendent’s plantation at Vaux. It was first brought from
Constantinople to Vienna, thence into Italy, and so 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.
5. The chesnut is (next the oak) one of the most sought after by the
carpenter and joyner: It hath formerly built a good part of our ancient
houses in the city of London, as does yet appear. I had once a very
large barn near the city, fram’d intirely of this timber: And certainly
they grew not far off; probably in some woods near the town: For in that
description of London, written by Fitz-Stephens, in the reign of Hen.
II. he speaks of a very noble and large forest which grew on the Boreal
part of it; _proxime_ (says he) _patet foresta ingens, saltus nemorosi
ferarum, latebræ cervorum, damarum, aprorum, & taurorum silvestrium,
&c._ A very goodly thing it seems, and as well stor’d with all sorts of
good timber, as with venison and all kind of chase; and yet some will
not allow it a free-born of this island; but of that I make little
doubt. The chesnut affords the best stakes and poles for palisades,
pedament for vine-props and hops, as I said before: Also for mill-timber
and water-works, or when it may lie buried; but if water touch the roots
of the growing trees, it spoils both fruit and timber: ’Tis likewise
observed, that this tree is so prevalent against cold, that where they
stand, they defend other plantations from the injuries of the severest
frosts: I am sure being planted in hedge-rows, & _circa agrorum
itinera_, or for avenues to our country-houses, they are a magnificent
and royal ornament. This timber also does well (if kept dry) for
columns, tables, chests, chairs, stools, bedsteads; for tubs, and
wine-casks, which it preserves with the least tincture of the wood of
any whatsoever: If the timber be dipp’d in scalding oyl, and well
pitch’d, it becomes extreamly durable; but otherwise I cannot celebrate
the tree for its sincerity, it being found that (contrary to the oak) it
will make a fair shew outwardly, when ’tis all decay’d, and rotten
within; but this is in some sort recompenc’d, if it be true, that the
beams made of chesnut-tree have this property, that being somewhat
brittle, they give warning, and premonish the danger by a certain
crackling which it makes; so as ’tis said to have frighted those out of
the Baths at Antandro, whose roof was laid with this material; but which
Pliny says, was of hazle, very unlike it. Formerly they made
consultatory staves of this tree; and the variegated rods which Jacob
peel’d to lay in the troughs, and impress a fancy in his
father-in-law’s conceiving ewes, were of this material. The coals are
excellent for the smith, being soon kindled, and as soon extinguisht;
but the ashes of chesnut-wood are not convenient to make a lee with,
because it is observ’d to stain the linnen. As for the fruit, ’tis
better to beat it down from the tree, some little time before they fall
off themselves; thus they will the better keep, or else you must
smoke-dry them. But we give that fruit to our swine in England, which is
amongst the delicacies of princes in other countries; and being of the
larger nut, is a lusty and masculine food for rusticks at all times; and
of better nourishment for husbandmen than coal, and rusty bacon; yea, or
beans to boot, instead of which, they boil them in Italy with their
bacon; and in Virgil’s time, they eat them with milk and cheese. The
best tables in France and Italy make them a service, eating them with
salt, in wine, or juice of lemmon and sugar; being first roasted in
embers on the chaplet; and doubtless we might propagate their use
amongst our common people, (as of old the Βαλανοφάγοι) being a food
so cheap, and so lasting. In Italy they also boil them in wine, and then
smoke them a little; these they call _anseri_ or geese, I know not why:
Those of Piemont add fennel, cinnamon and nutmeg to their wine, if in
water, mollify them with the vapour only; but first they peel them.
Others macerate them in rose-water. The bread of the flower is exceeding
nutritive; ’tis a robust food, and makes women well complexion’d, as I
have read in a good author: They also make fritters of chesnut-flower,
which they wet with rose-water, and sprinkle with grated _parmegiano_,
and so fry them in fresh butter, a delicate: How we here use them in
stew’d-meats, and beatille-pies, our French-cooks teach us; and this is
in truth the very best use of their fruit, and very commendable; for it
is found that the eating of them raw, or in bread (as they do much about
Limosin) is apt to swell the belly, though without any other
inconvenience that I can learn, and yet some condemn them as dangerous
for such as are subject to the gravel in the kidneys, and however cook’d
and prepar’d, flatulent, offensive to the head and stomach, and those
who are subject to the cholick. The best way to preserve them, is to
keep them in earthen vessels in a cold place; some lay them in a
smoke-loft, others in dry barly-straw, others in sand, &c. The leaves of
the chesnut-tree make very wholsom mattresses to lie on, and they are
good littier for cattel: But those leafy-beds, for the crackling noise
they make when one turns upon them, the French call _licts de
Parliament_: Lastly, the flower of chesnuts made into an electuary, and
eaten with hony fasting, is an approved remedy against spitting blood,
and the cough; and a decoction of the rind of the tree, tinctures hair
of a golden colour, esteem’d a beauty in some countries: Other species,
v. Ray, _Dendrolog._ T. III, &c.