BOTANY. 



USE OF THE HORSE CHESTNUT AS FOOD. 



The Paris National, October, contains the following account of a dis- 

 covery recently reported to the French Academy : 



It has long been a problem, one of the desiderata of Agricultural Chem- 

 istry, to know how to convert the pulp of the horse chestnut into raeal of 

 good quality. These beautiful trees, which are the pride of our parks, 

 have for years strewed the ground with their fruits, which we have trodden 

 under foot without being able to reap the least advantage from them. 

 What is there, however, under the shining shell of the horse chestnut ? 

 A mealy substance, enveloped in nitrogeneous membranes that is to say, 

 matter eminently nutritive ; only one particular element, a bitter oil, is 

 secreted in these cells, and communicates to them an insupportable taste. 

 To strip the pulp of the chestnut of the essence which infects it, is, then, a 

 very natural idea, and one worthy to exercise the skill of our chemists ; 

 they have essayed very often ; they have even succeeded ; but it was by 

 expensive proceedings, proper for laboratories, but absolutely inapplicable 

 for common life. A method has at last been discovered by M. Flandin, 

 which he describes as follows : 



Collect some horse chestnuts, and grate them after having taken off the 

 skin ; throw on this pulp a little carbonate of pulverized soda. The car- 

 bonate of soda is found at any grocery. It costs three cents the pound, 

 and for every hundred weight of pulp two pounds are necessary. Mix 

 these materials well, kneading the pulp with your hands ; then you will 

 expose it in a sieve to a current of water like that which issues from the 

 spout of your fountain. Stirring the matter thus moistened, it will pass 

 entirely through the meshes of the sieve, and fall with the waters of wash- 

 ing into a trough placed beneath. Let these waters subside for some 

 minutes ; then pour them out by gently inclining the vat. They take 

 with them the bitter oil which has colored them green in dissolving itself, 

 and at the bottom of the vessel is found a fine paste of a brilliant white- 

 ness and very agreeable taste. This is the purified pulp. 



The theory of the operation is this : The bitter principle contained in 

 the pulp of the hcrse chestnut combines itself immediately with the car- 

 lo 



