100 FLOWERS AND FRUITS. 



of white and pink, and the deep green of its digitated leaves, make 

 it look like a mountain of ivory and emeralds, but this effect soon 

 gives place to its shadowy depth of coloring. In the beginning of 

 spring, one rainy day is sufficient to cause this beautiful tree to 

 cover itself with verdure. If it be planted alone, nothing surpasses 

 the elegance of its stately pyramid of from fifty to sixty feet, the 

 beauty of its foliage, or the richness of its flowers, which in May 

 or June, make it appear like an immense lustre or chandelier all 

 covered with pearls. Fond of ostentation and richness, it covers 

 with flowers the grass it overshadows and yields to the idler a 

 most delightful shade. The nuts and capsules are large, mahogany 

 colored, and are in great request among the rising generation, in 

 the construction of potato mills. Though they yield a fine starch, 

 still not in sufficient quantity to make it an object in the cultivation 

 of the tree. In our western states, they have been successfully 

 used to poison fish. Taken as a whole they rank in the merely 

 ornamental class, for though cattle, especially the Deer, eat the nuts 

 with avidity, to man they are acrid and unpalatable, evidently not 

 intended for his food. The timber is of little service, being soft 

 and perishable. The bark it is said is of some service in tanning, 

 and the nuts, besides the properties we have named, have a soapy 

 quality, which the peasants in some countries employ advanta- 

 geously. Its generic name is derived from Esculus, a tree which 

 furnished the Romans with an eatable fruit. The specific name 

 meaning Horse Chesnut, was given because the Turks grind the 

 nuts and mix them with corn, for their steeds. It is the emblem of 

 LUXURY. 



"There avenues of chesnuts high, 

 With vaulted roofs conceal the sky." 



