188 



THE HOUSE CHESTNUT. 



the middle of the sixteenth centur5^ In the year 1588 

 there was a growing specimen at Vienna, which had been 

 planted there twelve years before, but which had not yet then 

 flowered. This is said to have been imported from England, 



whither it had been brought from the mountains of Thibet 

 in 1550. In France it was first raised from seed procured 

 from the Levant, in the year 1G15. Gerard, in 1579, speaks 

 of it as a rare foreign tree ; and how little it was known 



