376 



The Horse-Chesnut. 



Vol. XII. 



mother of a family can have is that which 

 she takes in neatness and cleanliness. If 

 she be deprived of the means to procure de- 

 cent clothing for herself and children, every 

 week renders her condition worse, and the 

 case more hopeless, because time makes 

 rapid inroads on dress. The more homely 

 it is the more constant must be the care and 

 attention; but time and attention cannot 

 create new, though it may preserve old, for 

 a definite period. — London Horticultural 

 Magazine. 



The Ilorse-Chesnut. 



The Horse-chesnut is a tree of the largest 

 size, with an erect trunk, and a pyramidal 

 head, sometimes attaming a height of ninety 

 or one hundred feet. The leaves are large, 

 of a deep green, and singularly interesting 

 and beautiful, when first developed. When 

 enclosed in the bud, they are covered with 

 a pubescence, that falls off as they become 

 expanded, which occurs sooner or later, ac- 

 cording to the dryness or moistness of the 

 season. The buds are covered with a gum- 

 my substance, which protects their downy 

 interior from the wet. The growth, both of 

 the tree and of the leaves, is very rapid, 

 sometimes the young shoots and leaves being 

 perfected in three weeks from the time of 

 their first unfolding. The flowers appear a 

 short time after the leaves, and are white, 

 variegated with red and yellow; and in Brit- 

 ain and the northern parts of the United 

 States, they expand in May, and tlie fruit 

 ripens about the end of September or early 

 in October. 



The native country of the common horse- 

 chesnut, Mr. Royle observes, " is yet un- 

 known, though stated, in some works, to be 

 the north of India." He says that he never 

 met with it, though often visiting the moun- 

 tains of that country, where, if anywhere, it 

 was likely to be found, and where the Indian 

 horse-chesnut was found in abimdance. 



According to M. Bon do Saint-Hilaire, the 

 borse-chesnut passed from the mountains of 

 Thibet to England in 1550, and thence to 

 Vienna, by Clusius, and afterwards to Paris 

 by Bichelier. It is also stated by Clusius, 

 in his "Rariorum Plantarum Historia," that 

 there was a plant of this species at Vienna, 

 in 1588, v^'hich had been brought there 12 

 years before, but which had not then flower- 

 ed. It has also been said that this tree was 

 first raised in France, from seeds procured 

 from the Levant, in the year 1615, by one 

 Bachelier. Parkinson, in 1629, says, "Our 

 Christian world had first a knowledge of it 

 from Constantinople." The same autlior 

 placed it in his orchard, as a fruit tree, be- 



tween the walnut and the mulberries. We 

 afterwards find it mentioned in Johnson's 

 edition of Gerard's " Herbal," in 1633, as 

 then growing in Mr. Tradescant's garden, 

 at South Lambeth. From this period till 

 the time of Miller, it appears to have at- 

 tracted great attention, and acquired a high 

 reputation as an ornamental tree, as he re- 

 presents it in 1731, as being very common 

 in England, and extensively employed in the 

 formation of avenues and public walks. 



The largest horse-chesnut supposed to ex- 

 ist in Britain, is at Nocton, in Lincolnshire. 

 It is represented as being a most magnificent 

 tree, 59 feet high, with immense branches, 

 spreading over a space of 805 feet in cir- 

 cumference. The branches are supported 

 by props, so that at a little distance, the tree 

 appears like an immense Indian bannian. 

 At Coombe Abbey, in Warwickshire, there 

 is another tree of this species, which attain- 

 ed the height of 70 feet in one hundred 

 years after planting, and had a trunk seven 

 feet three inches m diameter, with an ambi- 

 tus, or spread of branches, of 103 feet. Sir 

 T. Dick Lauder, speaking of horse-chesnuts 

 in Scotland, says, "The horse-chesnuts on 

 the lawn, which was formerly the garden of 

 Dawick, the seat of Sir John Murray Nas- 

 myth, Bart., a few miles from Peebles, in 

 Tweeddale, are certainly the oldest and finest 

 in Scotland; or, perhaps, we should say there 

 are none equal to them in Britain. They 

 stand twelve feet from each other; but they 

 support a mass of foliage that appears to be 

 but one head, which takes a beautiful form, 

 and covers an area of ground, the diameter 

 of which is 96 feet. The larger of the two 

 is in girt, immediately above the root, 16J 

 feet. The smaller tree is 12^ feet in cir- 

 cumference at the base, and 10 feet at 3 feet 

 high." The age of these trees was esti- 

 mated by him to be from ISO to 190 years. 

 Mr. Loudon has recorded another tree of 

 this species, as growing at Enfield, near 

 London, wliich, in 1835, had attained the 

 height of 100 feet. 



The largest horse-chesnut in France, and 

 which was considered as the parent stock 

 from which all others have been propagated 

 m that country, formerly existed in the gar- 

 don of the Temple. The second tree of this 

 species introduced into that kingdom, was 

 planted in the Jardin des Plantes, in 1650, 

 and died in 1767. A section of its trunk is 

 still preserved in the Museum of Natural 

 History. There is a tree of this kind exist- 

 ing in the garden of the Tuileries, which is 

 distinguished, even in summer, from all 

 others in the same garden, by the profusion 

 of flowers with which it is covered, and also 

 by the earliness of their putting forth. It 



