180 AMENTACE^ 



to be regretted that they arc not more generally used in country places by 

 the poor, and that there are not more ladies like Miss Tyler, the aunt of 

 Southey, who, he says, " eftected a wholesome and curious innovation " in 

 the poor-house, by persuading the managers to use beds stufted with Beech- 

 leaves. The practice of thus using them is very ancient, as the oft-quoted 

 line of Juvenal testifies : — 



" The wood an house, the leaves a bed." 



Evelyn say.s, that being gathered about the fall, and somewhat before 

 they are frostbitten, they "afibrd the best and easiest mattresses in the world 

 to lay under our quilts, instead of straw ; because, besides their tenderness 

 and loose lying togethei-, they continue sweet for seven or eight years, long 

 before which time straw becomes musty and hard." He adds, "I have often 

 lain upon them, to my great refreshment." Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, though 

 used to the better beds of our times, still highly praises the Beech-leaf 

 mattresses, as forming a most luxurious couch, having a fragrant odour like 

 that of green tea. 



Our old herbalists believed Beech-leaves to possess valualjle medicinal 

 properties. "They are," says an old writer, "cooling and Ijinding, and 

 therefore good to be applied to hot swellings to discuss them." He recom- 

 mends a salve made of these leaves ; and says, that the water found in the 

 hollowed places in the Beech-trunk is very efficacious in complaints of the 

 skin. The catkins, which fall from the tree in spring, are sometimes collected 

 for filling pillows and cushions, and also for packing fr'uit. The smooth 

 bark is frequently inscribed by the rustic lover now with the name of his 

 mistress, as it was in the days of Virgil : — 



" Or shall I rather the sad verse rej)eat, 

 Whicli on the Beech's bark I lately writ ?" 



A writer in an American journal stated, a few years since, that the Beech 

 was a non-conductor of lightning. It is a well-known fact that the Indians, 

 in the prospect of a thundeistorm, take refuge beneath its boughs. Dr. 

 Beeton, in a letter to Dr. Mitchell, stated that the Beech-tree is never known 

 to be struck by lightning, Avhen other trees are shattered into splinters. 



7. Chestnut {Castdnea). 

 Spanish Chestnut or Sweet Chestnut {C. vuhjdrk). — Leaves oblong- 

 lanceolate, tapering to a j)oint, serrated, with a small spine on each serrature, 

 smooth on both sides. In many woods of the south and south-west of 

 England, magnificent Chestnut-trees are to be seen, apparently growing wild; 

 and those who have spent their early days in their neighbourhood may, 

 perhaps, recall with what glee they searched, in the month of October, for 

 the fruits which fell from the boughs. The Chestnut-tree often adorns, too, 

 the parks and pleasure-grounds of various parts of the kingdom ; and though 

 a naturalized and not a native plant, it was probably introduced here at a 

 very early period by the Komans. They called the tree Castdnea, from a 

 town of Magnesia, in Thcssaly, where it grew in great abundance, and from 

 which place they are believed to have obtained it. The fruit Avas also by 



