1212 FAGUS. [CLASS XXI, ORDER VII. 
Jean of Arragon, and her attendant nobility, amounting to a hundred 
persons, from a storm on Mount Etna. 
The wood of the Chesnut is much esteemed for millwright work, 
water works, house building, &c., &c., and in Italy a great part of the 
furniture is made of this material, and when polished is as beautiful as 
walnut wood, and quite as durable. 
Chesnuts with us are used only as an article of luxury, being 
brought to table roasted after dinner; they also enter into some of the 
compositions of cookery as stuffing for turkeys, &c. But on the Con- 
tinent, and especially in the mountainous districts of Italy, where 
vast tracts are covered with this ,tree, and where there is but a very 
scanty supply of corn, and this grown in terraces on the mountain 
sides with the vine and olive, the peasants are obliged to depend upon 
the produce of the Chesnut for their winter’s food; and when it 
fails to yield the usual crop, the sufferings of the people are very 
great, for in many districts these nuts are their entire support, 
About the end of September the nuts are ripe, and fall from their 
spiny case ; before this period the owners of the woods cut down all 
the weeds, and clear the ground for gathering. The nuts are dried 
in ovens after they have been deprived of their skin, and ground into 
flour, which is then mixed with water, and rolled into thin cakes, 
and with layers of the leaves of the tree top and bottom it is baked 
between stones. These cakes are similar to our oat cakes in appear- 
ance, but have a sweet taste. This, which is called Pane di Castanea, 
or{Pane dolce, is preferred by children accustomed to its use to 
wheaten bread. Besides this mode of preparing Chesnuts, they both 
yoast and boil them, and in this state they are sold at the corner of 
the streets in every town in Italy, and from the quantities seen 
constantly cooking they must be in great demand. It is not in Italy 
only that they are thus used as an article of food, but in Spain, Por- 
tugal, and the South of France; and it is probable that the mast 
spoken of by the ancient authors, on which our forefathers fed before 
corn was introduced as food, was frequently Chesnuts, as well as 
acorns and beech nuts. ‘The leaves of the Chesnut tree in Italy are 
collected and used as bedding for cattle. 
GENUS XXII FA'GUS.—Linn. Beech. 
Nat. Ord. CupuLire'R2. RicwH. 
Grn. Cuan. Barren flowers in globose catkins, pendulous. Perianth 
single, bell-shaped, six-cleft. Stamens five to twelve. Fertile 
flowers two, in a four lobed prickly involucre. Perianth single, 
urceolate, four or five lobed, adhering to the ovary. Styles 
three. Ovarium three angled, three celled. Fruit a three 
