HORSE-CHESNUT. 95 



,Chelsea college were then very young ; but we are told 

 that there was a very fine one then growing in the post- 

 house garden near Old-street, and another not far from 

 the ice-house under the shadow of the Observatory in 

 Greenwich Park. 



The grand avenue of horse-chesnut-trees in Bushey 

 Park, near Hampton-Court Palace, is the finest in Eng- 

 land, and attracts many parties from London to see it 

 when in full blossom. 



The fruit of the horse-chesnut-tree is ground, and 

 given to the horses in Turkey, particularly to such as 

 have coughs, or are broken-winded. The Turks also give 

 it to milch-cows, it being found to increase the quantity 

 of milk, without injuring the quality. 



The author, when in Paris, found the milk which he ob- 

 tained from the porter of the hotel so superior in flavour 

 to what he had ever met with in the country, that he was 

 induced to investigate the cause, and found that the goats 

 which supplied the hotel with milk, were then kept en- 

 tirely on the leaves of the horse-chesnut-tree, which were 

 brought to Paris as a covering to the numberless baskets 

 of fruit that then furnished the markets of that city. 



In France and Switzerland horse-chesnuts are used for 

 the purpose of bleaching yarn, and are recommended as 

 capable of extensive use in whitening, not only flax and 

 hemp, but also silk and wool. These nuts contain a 

 great deal of farinaceous and nutritive matter, and when 

 deprived of their astringent principle, constitute a very 

 good article of food for cattle. 



A patent was granted, in the year 1796, to Lord William 

 Murray, for his discovery of a method of extracting starch 

 from horse-chesnuts ; and a paste or size has been made 

 from them, which is preferred by bookbinders, shoemakers, 

 and paper-hangers, to that made from wheaten flour. It 

 is thought that the meal of this fruit can be converted 



