Wheeling Sunday Register

Chestnuts and Chestnut Trees in Italy.

London Daily News.

Signor Shira, Inspector-General of Forests, in an interesting report says among other things that the famous chestnut tree on Mount Etna, which still lives, measures sixty-four metres in circumference at its base. Its age is estimated differently—some attribute to it 4,000, some 2,000 years, and recent studies give it at least 800 years. There are some other famous chestnut trees in Italy, notably one in Montamiata, in Tuscany. The deplorable custom of late years to destroy the forests has deprived Italy of many noble chestnuts, but it is to be hoped they will be protected by the new scheme of the Minister of Agriculture for rewooding the denuded mountains. In the north of Italy the chestnut grows at an altitude of from 400 to 900 metres above the level of the sea; in sunny situations even at 1,200. In the south the zone of growth is between 500 and 1,200 metres above the level of the sea. Almost all the Italian provinces cultivate the chestnut, these trees occupying a total surface in Italy of about 496,114 acres. The most are found in the provinces of Lucca, Sondrio, and Genoa. In Lucca, for example, 182.52 per thousand acres of the territory are occupied by the chestnuts. The total annual produce of chestnut (fruit) is about 5,768,436 quintals. Those of Cuneo are best both for quality and quantity. The exportation is about 70,000 quintals, at a profit of about two million francs. There are several methods of preserving the fruit—from sugaring the chestnut to slightly boiling and then drying them, or laying them when newly gathered in November, among perfectly dry sand in vases, and burying the vases in dry earth, when they will remain fresh and good til the next June.