more valuable it is, the young hop shoots, according to Cobbett, disliking a thick pole to twine round.
At Welbeck the chestnut is considered by Mr. Michie, forester to the Duke of Portland, to be the most profitable tree to grow on sandy soil, as it grows much faster than oak and realises about 1s. 2d. per foot at a much earlier period. He showed me a plantation on Tressless Hill thirty-eight years old in 1903, in which the trees averaged about 65 feet high by 3 feet in girth, and stood about 150 to the acre. He said that they should not be grown without underwood, because in severe winters the unprotected trunks were liable to be cracked by frost near the ground.’
We have no exact records of the amount of timber per acre that may be produced by the chestnut when grown for timber in England, but I think that in the south on good land it would probably be greater than that of any other tree. One very remarkable case is a grove of 34 chestnuts and 9 oaks by the drive leading to Bicton House, Devonshire, which average about 100 feet high, by 6 to 7 feet in girth in the middle of the grove, and 9 to 12 feet on the outside (Plate 232). I estimated that this area was about half an acre, and the cubic contents of the timber on it about 5000 feet. At my request the late Mr. Mark Rolle had it care- fully measured and wrote me on December 19, 1903, that the exact area on which the trunks stood was 1 rood 32 poles, though, of course, the branches extended over much more. The cubic contents were 7300 feet and the age of the trees about 150 years. We may therefore take at least 10,000 feet per acre as the result here.
Another very striking instance of the same character js a grove called ‘The Chestnut Tole”* in Mr. Ashley Dodd's park at Godinton, Kent, where a great number of fine trees, having clean boles of 5° to 70 feet high by 8 to 10 feet in girth, grow mixed with ash. One of the chestnut trees was 86 feet to the point where the branches began, and I think that the timber in this grove would produce as great
1 Mr. Michie has sent the following note:—
"Sow seed in March, collected from sound, healthy, straight-growing trees, forty-five to fifty-five years of age, as I
find that seeds from trees of that age produce stronger seedlings than seed from younger or older trees, or than foreign
seed. At one year old I lift the seedlings, shorten the tap-root, and plant in nursery lines. Care must be taken to plant in
fresh, sweet soil, as the root is very liable to malformation if in contact with fresh manure. In the following year cut them down to within one inch of the ground, which will cause them to throw out a strong and straight stem from 2 to
3 feet long; after which, at three years old, they can be planted out with safety. Without this treatment before planting
out, they generally require cutting off close to the surface, which is not always desirable in the planted area, owing to rank grass, bracken, etc., which smothers the young shoots.
I am greatly in favour of pure chestnut woods, very little thinning, and the encouraging of as much undergrowth as
possible, especially on the outsides of plantations, to prevent cold and frosty winds blowing through. At sixty years of age the trees should stand no more than 16 feet apart, which equals 170 per acre, and taking them at the low average of 50 cubic feet per tree, means 4425 (at Is, per foot) when the crop is realised.
The above crop can be grown on a sandy soil, which is of little value for ordinary agricultural purposes; for instance, in Birklands Wood, adjoining Bodly Forest, where the soil is very sandy and light, oaks covering an area of about 100 acres, although from sixty to eighty years of age, are long and slender, and contain on an average not more than 6 cubic feet of timber each; whereas some Spanish chestnuts, planted less than sixty years ago, contain fully eight times as much timber as the oaks.
On this estate the timber is used for making gates, gate-posts, and all kinds of fencing; also for window-sills of farm buildings, etc. Timber merchants buy it to supply the Sheffield trade (strickle handles, etc.), and also to put in the inside of threshing machines, for coffin boards, etc. The timber should be slowly and thoroughly dried before being used.
2 The same thing has occurred at Kew; and, as Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer pointed out, the cracks occur on the south side, and are the result of too tapid thawing by the sun.
3 Tole seems to be a local name for a clump of trees standing on the crown of a hill.
