village of Stazzona, valued chestnut orchards in his vicinity at $230 per acre in 1913. For some orchards the price was more, for others it was less. At $230 per acre an orchard should have thirty-five to forty trees per acre, which would give a value of about six dollars per tree. A tree with a girth of one meter was worth six dollars, but a big tree was worth fifteen to twenty dollars because it bore more nuts. This land valuation was based upon an earning of sixteen to twenty dollars per acre net at that time, 1913. This income in turn was based upon an average production, according to Mr. Pierri, of 3,100 pounds per acre, with fluctuations ranging between 1,700 and more than 4,000 pounds per year.
I saw this land. It was as steep as a house roof and is shown in Figs. 48 and 49. Similar land without chestnuts had almost no value. Note the number and value of trees in Mr. Pierri's statement above.
THE CHESTNUT FIELD IN THE SYSTEMATIC FRENCH FARM
The chestnut is a regular crop on systematized farms in at least one section of south central France. I saw it near the towns of Jouillac and Pompadour in the department of Corréze. Under this system the farmer plants about one-third of the farm land to grafted chestnut trees. The crop function is almost identical with that of corn on a farm in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, or Wisconsin. As the corn is used in these states for forage, so is the chestnut used in France. When the French farms are rented, the agreements usually contain a provision similar to that found in many American leases with regard to corn, the French provision requiring that the chestnut shall be fed on the farm so that the land may benefit by the fertilizing value of the crop. Sometimes this land that is in chestnuts is good arable land, sometimes the trees are planted in rows and cultivated—true tree-corn indeed.
The following interesting prices were reported from the chestnut-growing provinces Corrèze and Aveyron by American
