22 
SHAKESPEARE'S GARDEN 
They fell on : I made good my place; at length they came 
to the broomstaff with me .—Henry VIII., V. iv. 56. 
Another woodland beauty, no less remarkable for 
its palmate foliage than for its glossy red-brown fruit, 
was probably introduced by the Romans. It is the 
Castanea vulgaris of Linnaeus, the sweet chestnut of 
commerce. Not only is it good to eat, but its timber 
is excellent and extremely durable. A good deal of 
ancient timber-work ordinarily considered oak is 
really of this tree. We have many fine specimens of 
it in our English deer-parks, not forgetting those at 
Tort worth—old in the reign of King John. It is 
referred to by the poet as an edible in— 
A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap, 
And munch’d, and munch’d, and munch’d. 
Macbeth, I. iii. 4 ; 
as bursting while roasting : 
And do you tell me of a woman’s tongue, 
That gives not half so great a blow to hear 
As will a chestnut at a farmer’s fire. 
Taming of the Shrew , I. ii. 208 ; 
and once as a colour : 
Chestnut was ever the only colour. 
As You Like It, III. iv. 12. 
The crab-tree is one of our greatest ornaments this 
month in hedge and copse. And not only an orna¬ 
ment, for was it not under a crab that the poet is 
said by a scandalous tradition to have fallen asleep 
after a drinking-bout at the Falcon Inn in Bidford ? 
The crab apple (Pyrus malus, L.) is the native source 
from which all our domesticated apples are derived. 
And not only so, but its strong, tough wood was 
employed in the manufacture of quarter-staves. 
Hence we get : 
Fetch me a dozen crab-tree staves, and tough ones. 
Henry VIII., V. iv. 7. 
