114 .ESCULUS HIPPOCASTANUM. 
washing linens and other stuffs. The nuts must be peeled and ground, and the 
flour of twenty of them is sufficient for ten quarts of water ; and either linens or 
woollens may be washed with the infusion, without any soap, as it effectually 
eradicates spots of all kinds. The clothes, however, should afterwards be rinsed 
in clean water. The nuts, when ground into flour, and mixed in the propor- 
tion of one third with the flour of wheat, are said to add to the strength of book- 
binder's paste; and when steeped in hot water, and mixed with an equal pro- 
portion of bran, it makes a nutritious food for pigs and poultry. M. Vergaud 
has proposed to change the starch contained in the flour, into sugar, and after- 
wards employ it in distillation. 
In Europe and America, the horse-chesnut can only be considered as an orna- 
mental tree. It produces a splendid effect when in flower, either singly, in ave- 
nues, or on the margins of plantations. Gilpin objects to this tree, as being 
" lumpish in its form ;" but in saying this, he evidently judged of the tree merely 
with reference to picturesque beauty, to which it has but few pretensions till it 
becomes very old ; whereas in point of floral beauty, it is unequalled by few 
other trees. " To the painter the magnificence of its stature" and the richness 
of its drapery, especially when clothed in the beauty of its broad palmated leaves, 
and embroidered with its profusion of silver flowers, "scarcely atone for the 
exceeding regularity of its form, terminating, as it invariably does, when left to 
the hand of nature, in an exact parabola." And in addition to these beauties, 
its massive and luxuriant summit contrasts well with those of trees of a more 
airy character, and thus produces that breadth of light and shade so essential to 
landscape scenery. 
