248 Editorial Miscellany. 



try people who collect the nuts, or cause them to be collected, use 

 the greater part of the oil in their own household, and only dis- 

 pose of the remaining fraction. This is the reason why it is 

 impossible to give even a rough estimate of the quantity annually 

 produced About Hanover the nuts are gathered towards the end 

 of^October, or the beginning of November ; this is done either by 

 picking up by hand, those which have fallen to the ground, or by 

 spreading out large sheets under the trees and beating the 

 branches with poles, so as to cause the nuts to separate from them. 

 The latter process appears, at first sight, least expensive ; but as 

 the good nuts have to be separated from the bad (abortive) ones, 

 it is found, on closer examination, to be just the contrary. In 

 1854 about 251bs. of nuts sold in Hanover for Is. Qd. ; 25 lbs. 

 yield about 5 lbs. of oil, 1 lb. selling for about Id. The oil is of a 

 pale yellow color, and has an extremely agreeable taste. It is 

 often adulterated with Walnut oil ; the latter is even sold as 

 Beech oil, and that may account for the difference of opinion en- 

 tertained respecting the quality of the Beech oil. The townspeo- 

 ple use it chiefly as salad oil, but the peasantry employ it general- 

 ly as a substitute for butter, &c., and only when there has been 

 a good harvest of nuts, for burning in their lamps. The husks 

 (epicarpia) are, after the oil has been expressed, made into cakes 

 about 9 inches square and 1| inches thick ; these are used for 

 combustibles, and not given, as some people imagine, as food to 

 cattle. Both the oil and the cakes alluded to, are exhibited in the 

 Museum at Kew. — Hooker's Journal of Botany. 



Horse Chestnut Flouk. — The following is ]M. Flandin's plan 

 of making flour from Horse Chesnuts. Grind the Horse Chesnuts, 

 and mix with the pulp, carbonate of soda in the proportion of one 

 or two per cent, at the utmost, and then wash the produce until it 

 is perfectly white ; 1 lb. of carbonate of soda will purify 100 lbs. 

 of Horse Chesnuts, and produce 60 lbs. of flour fit for bread, as 

 the salt removes the bitter principle from the nut. — A. L. O. 



Artificially Frosted Glass. — Many are practically cognisant of 

 instances where this kind of glass is used as a means of shading^ 

 so as partially to intercept the sun's rays ; but the advocates of 

 the practice must be blind, or they would see at once the ill efiects 

 of which it is productive. When used for such structures as vin- 



