CATKIN-BE AEING TRIBE 183 



of the popular food. He says : "We gi\'e that food to our swine in England 

 which is amongst the delicacies of princes in other countries ; and being a 

 large nut, is a lusty and masculine food for rusticks at all times, and of better 

 nourishment for husbandmen than cold and rusty bacon, yea, and beans to 

 boot ; instead of which they boil them, in Italy, with their bacon ; and, in 

 Virgil's time, they ate them with milk or cheese. The bread made of the 

 flour is exceedingly nutritive ; it is a robust food, and makes women well- 

 complexioned, as I have read in a good author. They also make fritters 

 with chestnut-flour, which they wet with rose-water, and sprinkle with 

 grated parmigiano, and so fry them in fresh butter for a delicate. How we 

 use chestnuts in stewed meats and beatille pies, our French cooks teach us ; 

 and this is, in truth, their very best use, and commendable." The old 

 French writers, though considering this fruit as well suited to the robust and 

 active, yet object to it, with good reason, for those whose lives are sedentary, 

 as being difficult of digestion. They recommend its external application, in 

 the form of cataplasms, for a variety of disorders Our own authors said 

 that, if eaten overmuch, these nuts " made the blood thick, and caused head- 

 a,che." One of them remai'ks : " If you dry chestnuts — only the kernels, I 

 mean, both the barks being taken away — beat them into powder, and make 

 the powder up into an electuary with honey ; so have you an admirable 

 remedy for the cough and spitting of blood." 

 Martial said, many centuries ago, — 



" For chestnuts roasled by a gentle heat, 

 No city can the learned Naples beat :" 



and the chestnut is yet roasted daily there, as well as in many other parts of 

 Italy. In the South of France, too, they form the commoii vegetable food 

 of the peasantry, and are a substitute for the bread and potatoes of the 

 British meal. The planting of trees, and the gathering and preparing chest- 

 nuts for use, form the livelihood of large numbers of people ; and the fruits 

 are preserved by drying either in sand or in a kiln. They are, when ground 

 to powder, mixed with milk and salt, and made into cakes or a kind of 

 porridge. In France they are usually prepared by boiling, and flavoured 

 with seasoning herbs, or they are roasted. Sugar and starch have been 

 procured from them ; and they have been, after roasting, put into beer . 

 instead of malt. 



While hanging on the tree, the nuts are covered with the enlarged outer 

 skin of the ovary, which is thickly beset with prickles. 



Several places in this kingdom seem to have derived their names from 

 the growth of these trees, as Norwood Chesteney, in the parish of Milton in 

 Kent, and Chestnut Hill, near it. "In Hertfordshire," says Sir Thomas 

 Dick Lauder, "is a town called, in old writings, Cheston, Cheshunte, Shester- 

 hunte, Cestrehunte; and Philpot, who wrote in 1659, says — 'There is a 

 manor called North wood Chestenus, which name complies with the situation; 

 for it stands in a wood where Chestnut-trees formerly grew in great abund- 

 ance.' " The French call the tree Chdtaignier ; the Germans, Kastanienbaum ; 

 the Dutch, Kadanjehoom ; the Italians, Casfagno ; and the Russians, Keschtan. 

 The word rendered by our translators of the Scripture by Chestnut, is 



