Fagus sylvatica has been by all odds longest in cultivation and many varieties are known. Rehder lists 17 principal varieties with many other sub varieties. These have leaves varying in color, purple, copper color, pinkish, yellow and whitish spotted with green, beside the usual green, also in shapes of leaves, some very narrow almost linear, some very small and deeply toothed, others large and roundish up to 3 in. broad and 5 in. long. The varieties vary in bark from the smooth bark typical of the beech to bark like that of the oak. They also vary in habit of growth, being mostly erect but some pendulous and some dwarf with twisted contorted branches. But no one seems to have ever heard of a large fruited beech. It is inconceivable however, that a tree can vary in every particular except in the fruit and it is believed that it only requires sufficient searching to find large fruited varieties. There are difficulties, however, in the way of finding unusual beeches which do not occur with walnuts, chestnuts and hickories, which are trees where the nuts have such merit that they are usually spared even if in the middle of a cultivated field, while the beech is usually a forest tree. A nut contest brings hundreds and thousands of walnuts and hickories but only very few beechnuts. Correspondence with the forestry departments of every state having such departments generally evinced interest in the search for a large fruited beech, but those replying universally disclaimed any knowledge of such. While it is believed that there are such in America, perhaps as many or more than in Europe, and efforts should be made here to find such, there are many reasons for believing that a search in Europe will be more immediately productive of results than will the search here. The beech is much more esteemed in Europe than here and has been extensively planted in forests that for centuries have been operated for constant production of timber. It is believed that the contents of those forests are as a class better known to their keepers, at least the beeches there are better known than in the forests in the United States. The number of propagated ornamental varieties noted in the second paragraph gives evidence of this. The history of one or two of these varieties will make this clearer.