Page:Tree Crops (1953).pdf/153

 The crop would amount to 1,200 decaliters (or 12,000 liters) of dried chestnuts, worth at four francs per decaliter a total of 4,800 francs. (Letter, Wesley Frost, American Consul General in Charge, Marseilles, August 4, 1927.)

The franc here referred to was worth about 19.3 cents of a dollar that is no more.

These facts of decline should be considered in connection with the following facts. There has been recent decline of rural population in all the chestnut districts of France as well as in nearly all the other districts of France. This is accompanied by a decline of acreage of nearly all other crops in the chestnut localities and also the closing down of mines in Corsica. It should also be remembered that during the period 1920-1926 there was a very sharp decline in rural population in nearly every American state, and many farms were abandoned, as much, for example, as five hundred thousand acres of land in the state of Ohio alone. (Information on chestnuts from Lucien Memminger, American Consul, Bordeaux, letter, September 23, 1927; and from Hugh H. Watson, American Consul, Lyons, France, letter, October 12, 1927.)

Japan has a species of chestnuts, Castanea crenata, different from those of America, C. dentata, or those of Europe, C. sativa. They are larger than any of the American or European chestnuts, are less sweet, but like the sweet potato they are full of starch and nourishment. The chestnuts of Japan, like those of Europe, are used for both forage and human food, almost invariably cooked. The Japanese laugh at us for eating them raw. Japanese government bulletins recommend the use of chestnuts for hillside planting and grafting as it is done in Europe and in America. In one of the best-known chestnut localities in the Japanese mountains, which I visited, about forty miles northwest of Kyoto, the value of the poorest chestnut land (30 to 35 yen per tan) was more than that of the poorest rice