1996 AUBOKLTUM AM) KllL'TlCETUM. PART HI. 



French cooks always slit the skin of all except one; and, when that cracks and 

 flies ort", they know that the rest are done. Chestnut flour is kept in casks, 

 or in earthen bottles well corked ; and it will remain good for years. Ln {^alette 

 is a species of thick flat cake, which is made without yeast, and baked on a 

 kind of girdle, or iron plate, or on a hot flat stone. It is generally mixed with 

 milk and a little salt, and is sometimes made richer by the addition of eggs and 

 butter ; and sometimes, when baked, it is covered with a rich custard before 

 Bcrving. La poh-nla is made by boiling the chestnut flour in water or milk, 

 and co"itinually stirring it, till it has become quite thick, and will no longer stick 

 to the finiicrs. When 'made with water, it is frequently eaten with milk, in the 

 manner that oatmeal porridge is in Scothuul. Besides these modes of dressing 

 chestnuts, which are common in Italy as well as in France, many others might 

 be mentioned ; particularly a kinil of hoidlli, called chaligna, which is made 

 by boiling the entire chestnuts, after they have been dried and freed from 

 their skins, in water with a little salt, till they become soft, and then breaking 

 and mixing them together like mashed potatoes; and a sweetmeat, called 

 ■marrons f!,lacvs, \\\\\c\i IS made by dipping the marrons into clarified sugar, and 

 then drying them, and which is common in the confectioners' shops in Paris. 

 (See Parmentier's Traitc de la Chutaignc ; Mem. dc Denma rets in Joitrn. de 

 riii/siquc for 1 77 1 and 1 772 ; Da Ham. Arb., i. p. 136. ; N. JJa Ham. iii. p. G5. ; 

 Diet. Class., &c., art. Chataignier ; Xouv. Coitrs, &c.) On the foreign motles 

 of dressing <;hestnuts in Evelyn's time, that author says, " The best tables 

 in France and Italy make them a service, eating them with salt, in wine, 

 or juice of lemon and sugar, being first roasted in embers on the chaplet. 

 In Italy, they boil them in wine, and then smoke them a little. These 

 they call anseri, or geese : I know not why. Those of Piedmont add fennel, 

 cinnamon, and nutmeg to their wine ; but first they peel them. Others inace- 

 rate them in rose-water. The bread 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 of chestnut flour, which they wet with 

 rose-water, and sprinkle with grated parmigans, and so fry them in fresh 

 butter for a delicate." (Hunt. EveL, i. p. lt)2.) Evelyn also says that " the 

 flour of chestnuts made into an electuary with honey, and eaten fasting, is an 

 ap[)roved remedy against s[)itting of blood and the cough; and a decoction of 

 the rind of the tree tinctures hair of a golden colour, esteemed a beauty in 

 fiome countries." (Ibid., p. 1(33.) Sugai- is said to have been obtained in 

 France from chestnuts by the same process as is used for the extraction of 

 the sugar from beet, and at the rate of 14 per cent; which is more than the 

 average produce of the beet-root. (Bun Se/is, as quoted in the AUieniCum of 

 Feb. 25. 1837.) 



As a Tree for useful Plantations, the chestnut is chiefly valuable as under- 

 wood, and for its fruit. As underwood, as already mentioned, it is grown, in 

 Englanil, for hop-poles, fence-wooil, and hoops. The poles last as long as 

 those of the ash, and longer ; but they do not grow so fast, ami they are apt 

 to send out stout side shoots, which, if not checked, either by pruning or by 

 the closeness of the plantation, cause, Cobbctt observes, " the upper part of the 

 pole to diminish in size too rapidly. To get a chestnut pole any where between 

 12 ft. and 20 ft. in length, there will also be a disproportionate but ; a dis- 

 advantage that none but skilful hofj-planters can know. The vines of the hop 

 (and it is the same with all other climbing plants) do not like to have a big 

 thinr' to "-o round at starting." (Jl'oodlamls.) Hence intelligent hop-planters, 

 " in order to obviate the injury arising from large-butted poles, stick in little 

 rods as leaders, to conduct the"vine to the pole at 2 ft. or 3 ft. from the ground. 

 (Ib'ul.) For this reason, the plants, in a plantation of chestnuts for under- 

 growth, ought not to be farther apart than 5 ft. every way ; in wliich case they 

 will require very little pruning, but will become drawn up of a proper size. 

 When the tree is plantetl for timber, its properties suggest the propriety of 

 cutting it down when the trunk is under 1 ft. in diameter, and for using it 

 chiefly in rustic structures, gate-posts, and lencing. As a iVuit tree, we have 



