the Tabernacle were fashioned after its form; and a branch of the tree had the honor of being the subject of a miracle, when Aaron's dry and sapless stick was made to blossom and bear on being laid up before the Lord who had appointed him. The Romans do not appear to have been very intimate with the fruit, Cato only mentioning them as "Greek nuts;" and some believe that even this supposed allusion really refers to walnuts rather than to almonds.

The tree

is indigenous to Barbary, where it grows so abundantly that its delicate fruit is not even reserved exclusively for the human palate, the Moors, it is said, being accustomed to drive their goats under the trees as they gather it, when the animals carefully nibble off the skins as it falls and then greedily feed. In this, its native land, it furnishes the first fruits of the year, the blossoms appearing in January, and its harvest being matured by April. Its generic name, Amygdalus, is derived from a Hebrew word signifying vigilance, because its early blossoms announce the coming of spring, preceding even its own leaves, a fact which the fanciful Greeks invented a myth to account for. Phillis, the beautiful Queen of Thrace, had not long been the bride of Demophoon, son of Theseus, who had been cast upon her shores when returning from the siege of Troy, and whom she had kindly received and at last married, when the newly-wedded husband, hearing of the death of his father at Athens, left her to proceed thither, promising however to return in a month. Happening to be detained beyond this time, his disconsolate wife wandered daily by the sea to watch for his return, braving even the coldest blasts of winter, until at length grief and exposure so wrought upon her that she one day fell dead upon the shore; when the pitying gods, admiring her constancy, saved her from corruption by changing her into an almond tree. Not long after, Demophoon at last arrived, and, overcome with grief on hearing the mournful fate of his lately blooming bride, rushed wildly to the lifeless looking tree and clasped it in his arms. The soul of his Phillis, changed as was her form, responded to him still, and, quickened by his warm embrace, the tree burst forth into a joyous flash of blossoms, though even the time of leafing had not yet arrived. Surely it would be perfectly impious to suppose that a bloom thus born of love could possibly have ripened into deadly poison; yet so little respect do the botanists pay to the memory of the gentle Queen Phillis, that they decline to determine between the sweet and the bitter almond as to which is the original type, and which the variety, since both are found growing wild, and even the same individual plant it is said will bear the one or the other kind of fruit, according to variation of culture. Had our Attic friends noticed this circumstance they would probably have added a chapter to the history of Demophoon, and traced the change in the fruit to his forgetting his first faithful love and contracting a second marriage. The difference between the two trees is very trifling, and even the kernels are exactly similar in appearance; but in the case of the bitter almond

the nut is strongly impregnated with prussic acid, of which there is no trace in those of the sweet kind, although it is found in the bark, leaves, and flowers, of both. Pleasant as a flavoring when employed in minute quantities, very injurious effects sometimes result from inadvertently using in excess so powerful an ingredient; but these would probably occur far more frequently if any credence were still given to the singular virtues once attributed to it; for it is likely that bitter almonds would be as regularly taken by one class of indulgers as dinner-pills are by another, if the tale were believed as told by Pliny-that if five' of them be taken by a person before sitting down to drink, he will be proof against inebriation; in confirmation of which is cited the account given by Plutarch of Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, one of the greatest drinkers of his time, who used them effectually for this purpose. Some countenance is given to the assertion by the circumstance of its being known that almonds were held in special favor by the monks of old, at whose festivals, too, almond milk, something very similar to our modern custard, was always a standing dish.

There is a pretty allusion to the blossoming of the almond in one of Moore's verses

"The hope of a future happier hour

That alights on misery's brow,

Springs out of the silvery almond flower

That blooms on a leafless bough."

But why the epithet "silvery" should have been selected seems hard to tell, since white flowers are by no means characteristic of the species, the blossoms being almost universally more or less tinged with pink. The same difficulty would seem to apply to the metaphor of Solomon, when, as illustrating one sign of old age, he says "And the almond tree shall flourish," Eccles. xii. 5—but that there is one variety, the Orientalis, or eastern almond-tree, which is noted for the peculiarly white and glistening or silvery appearance of the leaves, and which the sage may very probably have had in his mind, when he selected this tree to symbolize the hoary hairs of Eld.

Although it will ripen in England, the fruit never attains perfection in our climate; the tree therefore is only cultivated for the sake of its ornamental appearance, and the unproductive kinds are generally preferred, since the flowers of the barren are more showy than those of the fruit bearers. When grafted on a plum stock, the usual mode of treatment, the almond will grow to a height of twenty or thirty feet, but it attains far loftier proportions in the south of Europe, where it bears freely, though probably never subjected to the singular dressing recommended by Pliny, who informs us that if a hole be made in the tree and a stone introduced its fertility is much increased, a statement which a modern manuremonger might take advantage of to insist that this philosopher's stone must have been a coprolite! It is very closely related to the

peach, resembling it not only in its growth, its blossom, and its foliage, but even in being attacked by the same insects and liable to the same diseases, and they were accordingly ranked in the same genus by Linnæus, but have been separated in the natural system on account of the difference in the fruit, the stone in the one case being surrounded by a juicy pulp, in the other by a dry hairy covering, though both are really drupes; but there is scarcely any other difference between the trees, and even this may be only owing to variation of soil or circumstances, since some have been found quite in a transition state, with almonds upon them that were almost peaches, and Mr. Knight produced a tolerable fruit by introducing the pollen from peach anthers into an almond blossom, so that it is believed a deeper insight into fructal physiology will one day re-unite the divided genera. Mr. Loudon says, "We have little doubt in our own mind that the almond, the peach, and the nectarine are as much varieties of one species as the different varieties of cabbages are of the wild plant Brassica Oleracea." They all belong to the natural order, Rosacea, the blossoms being formed upon the same model as that of the Queen of Flowers, therein differing most widely from all our other nut blooms, every variety of hazel, walnut, or chestnut appearing in the catkin form, with the male and female flowers distinctly apart, so that the almond seems to form a sort of link between a nut and a stone-fruit.

About four hundred and fifty tons are annually imported, paying a duty of £18,000; the best kind, the Jordan, as they are called, coming really from Malaga, in Spain. The oil of almonds is largely used for toilet purposes and in medicine. It requires to be purified by fire, being set in a flame which is suffered to die away of itself, the most greasy particles being thus consumed and its arid qualities wholly destroyed. According to Decandolle it yields forty-six per cent. of its weight in oil; the walnut affording fifty, and the hazel sixty per cent. The caked kernels, after the oil has been expressed, are used for washing the skin, which they are considered to soften and beautify; indeed various preparations of the almond have been in use as cosmetics from the days of the Romans downwards. The bitter almond yields also an essential oil, in which indeed its poisonous principle consists rather than in its hydrocyanic acid, but this is only developed when water is added to the bruised kernel, being generated by the contact of water with the vegetable albumen.

But if the various nuts already mentioned are held in high esteem for furnishing a mere adjunct to a meal, how much more consideration may be claimed by one which provides the sole daily food of thousands. Though in this country ranking only as a luxury, it is yet one which is accessible to almost the poorest, being sold at a cheaper rate than any of its brethren even here, where it is a foreign import; for though the chestnut tree is common enough in England, the nuts it bears are usually almost worthless. It does not bring its fruit to perfection in any climate except where the grape also

will ripen freely in the open air. Notwithstanding the great similarity of the fruits, this tree is no relation to the horse chestnut, there being no other point of resemblance between them, and they belong indeed to quite distinct botanical orders, their blossoms even being singularly unlike, considering that they develop into a fruit almost exactly identical in appearance, both as regards the green prickly outer husk, the brown leathery inner one, and the white solid substance of the nut within; the yellow pendulous catkins almost as long as the leaves, with many anthered fertile flowers arranged here and there in tufts upon the twigs of the sweet chestnut, offering no indication of an issue having anything in common with that of the spring glory of Bushey Park, those stately pyramids of delicate petals, lighting up the dusky foliage amid which they gleam so fairly, like a feast of lanterns of nature's own devising. The fruit, however, is not so similar as it appears, botanists considering the prickly part of the fruit of the sweet chestnut as an involucre, analogous to the cup of the acorn or beard of the filbert, while that of the horse chestnut is a pericarp, containing real seeds, the corresponding part in the former being actually seed-vessels.

The generic name of the chestnut, Castanea, is derived from its native place, a city of Pontus, whence it was brought to Greece, and first planted there in the classic vale of Tempe; Mount Olympus, too, being at one time nearly covered by it. It was familiar to the Romans, among whom the nuts were made into bread for the poor, but nevertheless seems to have been but little esteemed, if we may judge by the very uncomplimentary remark made upon it by Pliny, who, speaking of the multiplied coverings, observes—“It is really surprising that nature should have taken such pains to conceal an object of so little value." Perhaps the opinion had not arisen in his time which was entertained afterwards, as to this bread being a diet which tended to improve the complexion. In our own country the fruit appears to have been formerly much more largely employed than at the present day, or at least in more various ways; one use is recorded by Ben Jonson, when he alludes to "the chestnut which hath larded many a swine," and Evelyn speaks of their being made into fritters, 'pies, and stews, which he calls "the very best use for them; but our modern cookery books contain no information respecting such preparations. The finest we get come from Spain, where they are the common food of the peasantry, and where, too, a special sanctity attaches to them, for in Catalonia the people go from house to house on All Saints' Eve to partake of them, believing that for every chestnut they eat in a different house at that festival they will free a soul from purgatory. But it is in the south of France and in the north of Italy that they are of most importance as an article of consumption, for here they are the principal food of the lower classes. Professor Simmonds informs us that about 2,000,000 hectolitres are annually consumed in France, a portion of the rural population in some of the departments living almost

entirely upon them for half the year. They undergo the preparation of being unhusked, dried with smoke, ground into flour, and then mixed with milk and made into " 'galettes," a kind of pancake baked on an iron plate; or into "polenta," a species of porridge. When thoroughly dried for two or three days on the floor of a kind of kiln, pierced with holes, having a smouldering fire beneath fed with their own husks, they will keep good for several years, and this is the process followed at Limousin and Perigord. It is usual to collect the nuts when ripe as they fall from the tree; but if bad weather should set in the remainder are beaten off at once with long poles, and the husks are then trodden off by sabot-shod peasants, but when thus gathered they are fit only for immediate use. Though employed only for food in Europe, a beverage is prepared from them in Africa, Thunberg affirming that the Hottentots employ the wild chestnuts growing in their country in a similar manner to what we do coffee, the nuts being first steeped in water, then boiled, and afterwards roasted, ground, and made into drink.

The fruit constitutes the chief commercial value of the tree, for the wood is of very little use as timber, though at one time a contrary opinion was entertained as to its merits, founded on an erroneous belief that it had been used for the roofs of many old cathedrals in France, of the Louvre, and of our own Westminster Hall. About the end of last century, the Society of Arts, under the influence of this mistake, strongly recommended the chestnut for cultivation, even offering rewards for planting it until the error was discovered, the great Buffon demonstrating that oak wood, after the lapse of many years, assumes the appearance of chestnut, and Daubenton afterwards proving that in most of the cases mentioned the timber that had been used was actually oak. For some purposes, however, it is really preferred to even that type of British toughness, and in America, where the nuts, too, are considered to be sweeter than those of Europe, it is looked on as among the most useful wood in the forest, being largely used for posts and rails. It has now, too, the added interest of having been the tree selected to be planted by the heir of British royalty, at the tomb of the great Washington.

This wood has the singular property of being best when young, for after fifty or sixty years, and often much sooner, it begins to decay at the heart, and the corruption then spreads outwards until the whole trunk is consumed, and perishes. In the Cevennes this process is stayed by means of burning heath in the hollow of the tree, (for the wood, which is therefore little esteemed as fuel, smoulders instead of blazing,) until the interior surface is charred, when it will survive many years if the operation has been carefully performed. The huge chestnut on Mount Etna, said to be the largest tree in Europe, has but a mere shell of the trunk remaining, the heartwood having long since completely decayed. This liability to internal disease drew on it the animadversion of Evelyn, who quaintly says—"I cannot celebrate this tree for its sincerity, it being found that, con