222 



THAT'S IT; 



level and well-cropped turf, which spread itself 

 beneath these gigantic trees, whilst the inmost 

 recesses of the forest were ever and anon made 

 to resound to their mirth and music. Some 

 were heating down the chestnuts with sticks ; 

 others, for their own refreshment, were picking 

 out the contents from the palisadoed castles in 

 which the kernels lie entrenched (and when 

 newly gathered from the tree, nothing can he 

 more sweet or pleasing to the palate) ; whilst 

 others, and particularly the girls, were carrying 

 on an amusing warfare of love, by pelting one 

 another with the fruit. It seemed to us as if 

 the golden age had been restored ; and that, 

 abandoning all the luxuries and attendant evils 

 of civilized life, mankind had voluntarily re- 

 turned to their pristine simplicity of fare, when 

 the chestnut-tree yielded them their innocuous 

 food, and when the innocency of their lives cor- 

 responded with that of their rustic nutriment. 



The leaves, 2, of the sweet 

 chestnut, are oblong lanceolate, 

 mucronately serrated — (that is, 

 the indentations terminating in 

 sharp points) — and smooth on 

 each side. (The leaves of the 

 horse-chestnut, 566, are corn- 



advances. The nuts grow gene- 

 rally two together, flat on the 

 inner side, and attached by a 

 broad disc at the bottom to the 

 prickly husk, in which they are 

 contained. 



The nuts contain a large amount of nutritive 

 starchy matter, of a sweet flavour, on which 

 account they are extensively used as food 

 wherever the tree abounds. In all Spain, the 

 southern parts of France, Italy, and the adja- 

 cent countries, sweet chestnuts, either raw or 

 roasted, or ground into flour, or prepared in 

 some other way, form an article of diet. It is, 

 however, not the wild chestnut which furnishes 

 the eatable nuts, but a number of cultivated 

 varieties, the nuts of Which are larger and the 

 seeds sweeter. In North America it occurs wild 

 in great abundance in the hilly and mountainous 

 regions of Virginia, the two Carolinas, and 

 Georgia, as well as other districts. In its wild 

 state, the sweet chestnut acquires an unusual 

 size ; on iEtna, where it constitutes forests, 

 there are trees of great antiquity, one of which 

 is called " the hundred horse chestnut," from its 

 being able to contain a hundred mounted men 

 in its hollow. 



The wood of the chestnut is 

 well suited for paling, or piles, 

 as it resists the influence of 

 water ; it is also used for mill 

 timber and for water-works, and 

 produces one of the best kinds 

 of charcoal. The leaves of the 

 chestnut are attacked by very 

 few insects ; and it is said that 

 the wood never becomes worm- 



602. 



pound.) The flowers, 3, are pro- 

 duced on wood of the current 

 year, and are ranged along the 

 stem in sessile tufts. The bar- 

 ren catkins are numerous, soli- 

 tary, yellow, and pendulous ; the 

 fertile flowers, 3, are much fewer 

 than the barren ones, and are 

 placed on terminal stalks, which 

 are lengthened out as the fruit 



eaten. 



The ash belongs to the botani- 

 cal genus fraxinus, the derivation 

 of which is from phrasso, to 

 enclose, having formerly been 

 employed for making hedges. 

 Otherwise, it is thought to be 

 derived from phraxis, a separa- 

 tion, because the wood may easily 

 be split. The English name, 

 ash, is derived either from the 

 Saxon word, aese, a pike, or from 

 the colour of the bark of the 

 trunk and branches. 



The ash, 1, in point of utility, 

 is little inferior to the oak. Ittf 



