The finest chestnut I have seen anywhere is in the woodland of Thoresby Park, near Nottingham, being within the bounds of the ancient Sherwood Forest. In 1904 it was 110 feet high, with a straight bole quite clear of branches for 70 feet. Its cubic contents in timber were estimated at 300 feet. Loudon measured this tree in 1837 and found it to be 70 feet high, with a girth of only 11 feet at 1 foot from the ground. Its girth at that height is now over 17 feet. It is impossible to imagine a more perfect specimen of the species than this beautiful tree. It was planted about the year 1730, and is, therefore, now, say, 180 years old. Planters may accept a lesson from this tree, which has been drawn up to its fine stature by being grown in close forest among beeches, some of which, of the same height as itself, have been cleared away to show its fine proportions. Without such discipline, it might have expended its vigour in building up an enormously swollen trunk, instead of towering to its present height. This tendency towards breadth instead of height may be seen in countless places, both in England and Scotland. The Trysting Tree at Bemersyde, the massive pair in Mr. Wallace's garden at Lochryan, and the great chestnut at Myres Castle, in Fife (19 feet 9 inches in girth), are examples in point. At Deepdene, in Surrey, there stands a tree of this character, the clear bole being only 8 feet high, but girthing 26½ feet _at the narrowest part_. Near to it is one of nobler proportions--90 feet high, with a girth of 21 feet 5 inches. There is one characteristic of the chestnut which, while it adds much to the beauty of the grove, certainly detracts from the value of the timber. Just as one may see in a Gothic cloister how the architect, wearying of straight columns, introduces here and there a twisted one, so the trunk of the chestnut often grows in a regularly spiral manner. Economically and commercially, the timber of Spanish chestnut, up to a certain age, is no whit inferior to that of the oak--superior, indeed, in its young stages, owing to its producing less sap wood. Chestnut palings, gates, etc., are the most durable that can be made of any British-grown wood. In 1907 Lord Ducie exhibited at the Gloucestershire Agricultural Show some fencing posts made from chestnuts which he planted in 1855 and felled in 1885. These posts remained perfectly sound after exposure to wind and weather for two and twenty years.