142 
WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES. 
a longer curved style proceeding from a roundish ovarj' with 
three cells. In each cell there are two seed-eggs, but as a 
rule only one egg in two of the cells develops into a “nut.” 
The ovary develops into a large fleshy bur, with short stout 
spines, which splits into three valves when the dark-red 
glossy seeds are ripe. In the Sweet Chestnut the brown skin 
of the nut is the ovary, which had been overgrown by the 
prickly involucre ; here the spiny green shell is the ovary, 
and the “ nut ” a seed. Though horses will not eat this 
bitter fruit, cattle, deer, and sheep ai'e fond of it. Pounded 
in water, it becomes one of the numerous vegetable substitutes 
for soap. Under the name of Konker, or Conqueror, it 
affords a seasonal joy to the average boy, who first bom- 
bards the tree with sticks and stones to dislodge the fruit, 
and then threads the ruddy konkers on string and does 
battle with a chum similarly equipped, the one whose string 
is broken or pulled from his hand by the conflict of weapons 
being the vanquished. In some parts the game is led off 
by the recitation of the rhyme, “ Oblionker ! my fust konker.” 
The growth of the tree is very rapid, and consequently the 
timber is soft and of no value where durability is required. 
Still, its even grain and susceptibility to a high polish make 
it useful for indoor wood, such as cabinet-making and flooring. 
It is also used for making charcoal for the gunpowder mills. 
Although Salvator Rosa and other landscape painters have 
made such good use of the Sweet Chestnut pictorially, they 
have utterly neglected the Horse Chestnut ; and Hamerton 
hints that the cause of this neglect is the artist’s inability 
to represent its large flowers and leaves by the landscape 
painter’s ordinary method of laying on masses of colour : this 
requires drawing. The tree begins to produce fruit about its 
twentieth year, and continues to do so nearly every year. 
Its age is estimated as about two hundred years. The bark, 
at first smooth, breaks into irregular scales and in old trees 
