84 



CHESNUT. CASTANEA. 



Natural order, Contorts. In Botany, it is ranged in the 

 class of Monacia Polyandria, and is of the genus of 

 Fagus, or Beech. The Fruit is more properly a Mast 

 than a Nut. 



Or whose discourse with innocent delight 

 Shall fill me now, and cheat the wint'ry night ? 

 While hisses on my hearth the pulpy pear, 

 And black'ning chesnuts start and crackle there. 



THE chesnut-tree was first brought to Europe from 

 Sardis (now Sart), a town of Asia Minor, by the Greeks, 

 who called the fruit the Sardinian nut, until it was ho- 

 noured by the appellation of AIOJ BaAavoj, or Jupiter's 

 nut. Sardis was burnt by the Athenians 504 years before 

 Christ, which caused the invasion of Attica by Darius. 

 We may therefore venture to conclude that the chesnut 

 was thus early known to the Greeks. Pliny mentions 

 eight kinds of chesnuts as being known to the Romans in 

 his time, and says they were ground into meal, and made 

 into bread, by the poor ; " but when roasted," he adds, 

 " they are pleasanter and better food." He also mentions 

 one kind, coctiva (chesnuts to be boiled). Chesnuts were 

 considered nutritive by the ancients, and good for those 

 who vomited blood. 



" Chesnuts," continues Pliny, " were much improved 

 when men began to graft them." 



