1996

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

French cooks always slit the skin of all except one; and, when that cracks andflies off, they know that the rest are done. Chestnut flour is kept in casks,or in earthen bottles well corked; and it will remain good for years. La galetteis a species of thick flat cake, which is made without yeast, and baked on akind of girdle, or iron plate, or on a hot flat stone. It is generally mixed withmilk and a little salt, and is sometimes made richer by the addition of eggs-andbutter ; and sometimes, when baked, it is covered with a rich custard beforeserving. La polenta is made by boiling the chestnut flour in water or milk,and continually stirring it, till it has become quite thick, and will no longer stickto the fingers. When made with water, it is frequently eaten with milk, in themanner that oatmeal porridge is in Scotland . Besides these modes of dressingchestnuts, which are common in Italy as well as in France , many others mightbe mentioned; particularly a kind of bouilli, called ehatigna, which is madeby boiling the entire chestnuts, after they have been dried and freed fromtheir skins, in water with a little salt, till they become soft, and then breakingand mixing them together like mashed potatoes; and a sweetmeat, calledmarrons glaces, which is made by dipping the marrons into clarified sugar, andthen drying them, and which is common in the confectioners’ shops in Paris .(See Parmentier’s Traite de la Chdtaigne; Mem. de Desmarets in Journ. dePhysique for 1771 and 1772; Du Ham. Arb., i. p. 130.; IV. Du Ham. iii. p. 65.;Diet. Class., &c., art. Chataignier; Nouv. Cours, &c.) On the foreign modesof dressing chestnuts in Evelyn’s time, that author says, “ The best tablesin France and Italy make them a service, eating them with salt, in wine,or juice of lemon and sugar, being first roasted in embers on the chaplet.In Italy , they boil them in wine, and then smoke them a little. Thesethey call anseri, or geese : I know not why. Those of Piedmont add fennel,cinnamon, and nutmeg to their wine; but first they peel them. Others mace-rate them in rose-water. The bread of the flour is exceedingly nutritive:it is a robust food, and makes women well-complexioned, as I have read in agood author. They also make fritters of chestnut flour, which they wet withrose-water, and sprinkle with grated parmigans, and so fry them in freshbutter for a delicate.” {Hunt. Evel., i. p. 162.) Evelyn also says that “theflour of chestnuts made into an electuary with honey, and eaten fasting, is anapproved remedy against spitting of blood and the cough; and a decoction ofthe rind of the tree tinctures hair of a golden colour, esteemed a beauty insome countries.” {Ibid., p. 163.) Sugar is said to have been obtained inFrance from chestnuts by the same process as is used for the extraction ofthe sugar from beet, and at the rate of 14 per cent; which is more than theaverage produce of the beet-root. {Bon Sens, as quoted in the Athenaeum ofFeb. 25. 1837.)

As a Tree for tiseful Plantations, the chestnut is chiefly valuable as under-wood, and for its fruit. As underwood, as already mentioned, it is grown, inEngland, for hop-poles, fence-wood, and hoops. The poles last as long asthose of the ash, and longer ; but they do not grow so fast, and they are aptto send out stout side shoots, which, if not checked, either by pruning or bythe closeness of the plantation, cause, Cobbett observes, “ the upper part of thepole to diminish in size too rapidly. To get a chestnut pole any where between12 ft. and 20 ft. in length, there will also be a disproportionate but; a dis-advantage that none but skilful hop-planters can know. The vines of the hop(and it is the same with all other climbing plants) do not like to have a bigthing to go round at starting.” {Woodlands.) Hence intelligent hop-planters,“ in order to obviate the injury arising from large-butted poles, stick in littlerods as leaders, to conduct the vine to the pole at 2 ft. or 3 ft. from the ground.{Ibid.) For this reason, the plants, in a plantation of chestnuts for under-growth, ought not to be farther apart than 5 ft. every way; in which case theywill require very little pruning, but will become drawn up of a proper size..When the tree is planted for timber, its properties suggest the propriety ofcutting it down when the trunk is under 1 ft. in diameter, and for using itchiefly in rustic structures, gate-posts, and fencing. As a fruit tree, we have