CHESTNUT 



CHEVALIEB 



169 



need for tanning, l.nt is worth only alxmt half the 

 price of oak -luirk. Young chestnut-trees are much 

 esteemed for Imp and espalier poles. The chestnut 

 is t horefore frequently grown in England tin coppice 

 wood ; luit it succeeds well as a timlM-r tree even in 

 Scotland, although ii <loc not generally ripen its 

 fruit. In Devonshire, however, and in some other 

 parts of England, it is planted as a fruit-tree. It 

 succeeds throughout all the middle latitudes of 

 < i'-rmany, but dislikes a damp foggy atmosphere. 

 It prefers a dry light soil, and succeeds only where 

 there is a dry >ulisoil. The nuts are generally three 

 in each husk. They form an important part of the 

 fowl of the poor in the south of Europe, being used 

 either masted or boiled, and are ground into Hour, 

 and made into a kind of bread. They contain 15 

 per cent, of sugar, and by pressure yield a fer- 

 mentable sugary juice. uhen cultivated as a 

 fruit-tree it is generally grafted, by which means 

 the letter varieties are secured. A variety with 

 golden-edged foliage, and another with thin thread- 

 like divided leaves, are sometimes cultivated for 

 their foliage. Other species also bear eatable 

 fruits : those of the American Chestnut ( C. umeri- 

 i-,n,ii \, a tree much resembling the common chest- 

 nut, and of the Dwarf Chestnut, or Chinquapin 

 (C. pumila), a low tree, or more generally a shrub 

 of 7-8 feet high, are used in America. A number 

 of species are natives of the East. The inhabit- 

 ants of the mountains of Java eat the fruit of the 

 Silvery Chestnut ( C. argetitea ), and the Tungurrut 

 ( C. Tungurrut ), boiled or roasted, like the common 

 chestnut. Both of these are large trees, the Tun- 

 gurrut reaching a height of 150 feet. Closely akin 

 to the tine chestnuts is the Californian Chinquapin 

 ( Castanopsis Chrysophylla ). 



The HORSE-CHESTNUT '(JEsculus Hippocastanum) 

 is a wholly distinct Sapindaceous tree, supposed to 

 have been introduced from Asia about the middle 

 or latter half of the 16th century ; and of which 

 the exceptionally magnificent foliage and blossom, 

 rapid growth, stately size, and general effect have 

 made it a favourite among arboriculturists, though 

 the timber is soft and or little value. It forms 

 singularly effective avenues : those of Bushy Park 

 at Hampton Court Palace near London are well 

 known and largely visited, particularly when in 



Branch, with Blossom, of Horse-chestnut 



( jfSxculus Hippocattanum ) : 



o, vertical section of single flower ; 6, fruit : c, a single seed, 

 its coat partly removed. 



flower. The palmate leaves and terminal racemes 

 or panicles need no description, while the charac- 

 teristic 3-lobed, thick, prickly capsule, with its one 

 or two (rarely three fully developed) beautifully 

 marked and coloured seeds, is among the most 

 familiar recollections of childish treasure- trove in 

 early autumn. Other species and varieties have 



also been introduced, of which /E. indica in prob- 

 ably the handsomest. JE, rubii-umld, the so-called 

 scarlet- flowered horse-chestnut, although sometime** 

 described as a native of North America, is perhaps 

 only a variety of the preceding. The American 

 species of /Ksciilusand its practically indistinguish- 

 able ally, a sub-genus Pavia, are popularly termed 

 Buck-eye. None is so beautiful, or at least possesses 

 such a combination of beauties, as the common 

 horse-chestnut; but P. californica, although only 

 reaching a height of 12 to 15 feet, has a singulaV 

 wealth of fragrant blossom. P. rubra, with its 

 many varieties, is the Red Buck-eye. 



In Queensland the seeds of Ciistanogjtermum, a 

 leguminous tree, are sometimes eaten likechestnute, 

 and so called ; similarly is it at the Cape with the 

 seeds of Brabejiim stellatum, a Proteaceous plant. 

 The so-called tracer-chestnut of Europe is the 

 curious horned nut of Trapa natans (order Halora- 



flaceie), and is an article of food in southern 

 urope, China, and Cashmere. See TRAPA. 



Chetliain, HUMPHREY (1580-1653), a Man- 

 chester merchant and cloth manufacturer, founder 

 of a bluecoat hospital and of a public library at 

 Manchester ( q. v. ). See BOOK-CLUB. 



Cliettle, HENRY, a dramatist and pamphleteer 

 of the 16th century, was editor of Greene's Groafs- 

 K-ai-th of Wit ( 1592 ), wrote thirteen plays of con- 

 siderable merit, and was part author of thirty-five 

 others, including Robin Howl in two parts, Patient 

 Grisel, The Blind Beggar of Bethnul Green, and 

 Jane Shore. In Meres s Pallculis Tamia (1598) he 

 is mentioned as one of ' the best for comedy 

 amongst us.' Of his other works, his Kind- Hart's 

 Dreume (1593?) and Englande's Mourning Garment 

 (1603) are of interest, the former as containing an 

 apology undoubtedly intended for Shakespeare as 

 one of those whom Greene had attacked ; the latter, 

 a stanza supposed to be addressed to Shakespeare 

 as ' silver- tonged Melicert.' Chettle died about 

 1607. 



Chevalier, an honorary title given, especially 

 in the 18th century, to younger sons of French 

 noble families. Brought up in comparative luxury, 

 and left at the death of their fathers almost entirely 

 unprovided for, these men generally lived at the 

 expense of others, as a sort of aristocratic parasites, 

 even when they did not prefer recourse to such less 

 honourable means of livelihood as gave occasion to 

 the synonym for swindler, chevalier d'industn'i: 

 In the plays of the 18th century the chevalier is a 

 constant figure. Both the Old and Young Pretender 

 were called the Chevalier by their partisans. 



Chevalier, MICHEL, an eminent French 

 economist, was born at Limoges, January 13, 1806, 

 and was trained as an engineer. At first an 

 ardent St Simonian and busy contributor to the 

 Globe, he attached himself to the party of Enfantin, 

 and took an active part in the compilation of the 

 famous propagandist Livre Nouveait. After six 

 months' imprisonment in 1832, he had the prudence 

 to retract all that he had written in the Globe con- 

 trary to Christianity and against marriage. Soon 

 after he was sent *by Thiers to inquire into the 

 systems of water and railway communication in 

 the United States. In 1837 he published his chief 

 work, Des InterSts Matericls en France. He \\.is 

 made a councillor of state in 1838, and was 

 appointed in 1840 to the chair of Political Economy 

 in the College de France. In 1S.'> he was returned 

 by Avevron to the Chamber of Deputies. After 

 the revolution of 1848 he made onslaughts that were 

 never met upon the socialism of Louis Blanc in 

 Questions de Tramillcurs, as well as in the Revue 

 des Deux Mondes and the Jottrnal des Dfbats. 

 A number of these vigorous and masterly article* 

 were collected under the titles, Lettres sm 



