CHASK. 
enough to get beneath the pods of the charlock, 
and to be strewed over an adjoining pasture- 
ground for the use of sheep and cattle. “Sheep,” 
he says, “eat the tips of the leaves of the turnips, 
partially cut off by the scythe; and also the 
leaves of the charlock, but left the pods and the 
stalks of the latter in a great measure untouched. 
Cattle, however, preferred the charlock, eating 
the whole up clean, before they picked up the 
turnip leaves. Four or five acres kept about 
twenty head of young and store cattle near three 
weeks. Had the food been given to them regu- 
larly, and more frugally than it was, it would 
have kept them sufficiently as store cattle a 
month, This, added to the saving of the expense, 
compared with that of drawing, cannot be reck- 
oned at less than twenty shillings an acre.”— 
Withering’s Botany—Loudon’s Hortus Britanni- 
cus.—Sinclari’s Weeds of Agriculiwre—Lawson’s 
Agriculturist’s Manual.— Mortimer’s Husbandry. 
—Ilnsle’s Husbandry.— Doyles Husbandry —Mar- 
shal’s West of England.—Davy’s Agricultural 
Chemistry by Shier. 
CHASH. A tract of ground, devoted to the 
constant use and the occasional pursuit of cer- 
tain wild beasts. It differs from a forest, in be- 
ing less extensive, in having fewer liberties, and 
in usually belonging to a subject, while a forest 
can belong only to the crown; and it differs from 
a park, in its being unenclosed, and in the cir- 
| cumstance that a man may, by prescription, 
have a chase on another man’s grounds as well 
as on his own. Every forest is a chase, with ad- 
ditional and higher privileges; but no chase, as 
such, is a forest, or possesses any other protec- 
tion than such as is afforded by the general laws. 
The beasts of the chase are the buck, the doe, 
the fox, the marten, and the roe—The hunting 
of wild beasts and of game is commonly called 
the chase——A row of shrubby plants is also, in 
the provincial usage of some places, called a 
chase. ‘Thus, in the planting of quicksets, a sin- 
gle chase is a single row, and a double chase is 
another row planted below the first, in the mid- 
dle of the intermediate spaces. 
CHASTE-TREE,—botanically Vitex. A genus 
of ornamental shrubs and trees, of the verbena 
tribe. The true chaste-tree species, Vitex Agnus- 
Castus, is a hardy deciduous shrub, usually about 
six feet in height. It is a native of marshy and 
other moist places of Spain, Italy, and Sicily, 
and was introduced to Britain, from the last of 
these countries, in the latter part of the 16th 
century. Its branches are produced from the 
bottom and sides of the stem; its bark has a 
medium colour between brown and grey, but is 
affected in tint by the character of the soil; its 
leaves are digitated, or consist of folioles so unit- 
ed on one footstalk at the base as to resemble an 
open hand; its folioles have a dark green colour, 
and vary in individual leaves from five to eight, 
and the longest are situated in the middle, the 
shortest at the sides; and its flowers have a 
CHAYA. 
bluish purple colour, and are produced in long 
whorled spikes at the ends of the branches, and 
bloom in September and October. A variety of 
this species, with broad and serrated folioles, 
Vitex Agnus-Castus latifolia, is almost as common 
as the normal plant, and is supposed to have 
been introduced along with it from Sicily. 
The three-leaved species, Veter trifolia, is a 
native of Ceylon and Hindostan, and was intro- 
duced to Britain about the middle of last cen- 
tury. It is an evergreen, purple-flowered shrub, 
about four feet high, of great beauty, and of con- 
siderable reputed medicinal virtue. Its tender 
shoots and its leaves have a bitter taste and an 
aromatic fragrance, and are regarded by the 
Hindoo physicians as powerfully discutient, and 
are employed, ina warm state, and particularly 
in the form of fomentations, for rheumatism, 
swelled testicles, and contractions of the limbs. 
The bruised leaves are believed by the people of 
Amboyna to have a powerful effect in healing 
wounds. The fruit—which is small, smooth, 
black, and round—is in high repute among the 
Vytians, for its cephalic and emmenagogue vir- 
tues, and is prescribed, in the form of powder, 
electuary, and decoction, for palsy, weakness of 
the limbs, and similar diseases.—The cut-leaved 
species, Vitex incrsa—called by some botanists 
Vitex negundo—is a tender, evergreen shrub of 
about four feet in height, and was introduced to 
Britain from China about the middle of last cen- 
tury. Its leaves are reputed to possess the same 
medicinal virtues as those of the three-leaved 
species, but in a less degree; and its root hasa 
bitter taste, and is used, both in infusion and in 
decoction, in cases of intermittent and typhus 
fever.—Nine other species, all tender evergreen 
shrubs or trees, have been introduced to Britain 
from Ceylon, Cayenne, Hindostan, and Jamaica; 
two, V. arborea and V. wmbrosa, have each a | 
height of about 30 feet, and the others vary in | 
height from 4 to 8 feet; and one, V. ovata, has 
simple or undivided leaves,—two, V. wmbrosa and 
V. leucoxylon, have quinate digitate leaves like ~ 
the true Chaste-tree species,—and the others 
have ternate leaves like V. trifolia. Nearly 
twenty other species are known to botanists. 
CHATS. ‘The seeds of the ash, the sycamore, 
and some other trees. 
CHAYA,—botanically Oldenlandia wmbellata. 
A low-growing, tropical plant, of the madder 
tribe. Its leaves are small, white, and numer- 
ous, and have a slightly bitter and unpleasant 
taste; they are prescribed by the physicians of 
Ceylon and Hindostan, to promote expectora- 
tions in diseases of the chest; and, when dried 
and pounded, they are mixed with flour, and 
baked into cakes, for the use of asthmatic and 
consumptive patients. The root is well known 
and extensively used as a dye-stuff, for dyeing 
red, orange, and purple; it is produced, in con- 
siderable plenty, on the island of Ramissorum, 
and in the southern parts of the Indian conti- 
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