trary to the oak, it will make a fair show outwardly when it is all decayed and rotten within; but this is in some sort recompensed, if it be true that the beams made of chestnut tree have this property, that, being somewhat brittle, they give warning and premonish the danger by a certain crackling, so as, it is said, to have frightened those out of the baths of Antandro, whose roof was laid with this material.” Another and a better compensation for this early rotting of the living tree is that the timber, if cut while sound, will never become worm-eaten, and scarcely any insect will touch the leaves, though the nut is very liable to the attack of a kind of weevil, the eggs of which are deposited in the young fruit, involving the need of careful inspection when selecting them to plant. Twice were some chestnuts sent to Mr. Loudon as seed nuts from the celebrated tree at Vermont, planted by Washington, but both times they were found on arrival to have been insect-pierced, and consequently never vegetated.

In its choice of soil this tree seems particularly judicious in fixing on the localities where it is most likely to be welcome. "Wherever I have seen chestnut trees," says Bosc, "and I have seen them in a great many different localities, they were never in soils or on surfaces fit for the production of corn. On mountains in France, Switzerland, and Italy, wherever chestnut begins corn leaves off." Forming a striking feature in wild scenery, the chestnut tree was specially dear to Salvator Rosa, and the famous "leaves in Vallombrosa" consist mostly of its foliage. In England it is chiefly grown in hop counties or around orchards, especially in Devonshire. The deeply serrated, pale green shining leaves are, on old trees, only from four to six inches in length, but on young shoots they are often nearly a foot long and three or four inches broad, and it is a singular fact, that in both wild and cultivated varieties they always grow broader in English as compared with French trees, a peculiarity which has been noticed in the leaves of some other kinds of trees likewise. In France there are two very distinct varieties of the chestnut, les chataignes and les marrons, the former being to the latter, says Loudon, what the crab is to the apple, the marron being vastly superior in both size and flavor.

At Tortworth, in Gloucestershire, there is a chestnut reckoned to be both the largest and oldest tree in England, tradition carrying back its origin to the heptarchic days of Saxon Egbert, and the measurement of its trunk at a height of six feet from the ground amounting to rather more than forty-five feet.

A similar position to that which the chestnut occupies in particular localities in Europe is held in some parts of the New World by the juvia tree, which furnishes what are called brazil nuts, sometimes also prettily termed the almonds of the Amazon. The gathering of these nuts is celebrated among the Indians by a festival called la fiesta de las juvias, something similar to our harvest home, but signalised by great excesses, feasting on roasted monkeys, dancing

and drinking forming the chief amusements, and the men being commonly in a state of complete intoxication throughout the two days of the fête. The tree, baptized by Humboldt with the name of Berthollia excelsa, may almost be said to have been discovered by that eminent traveller, so meagre was the information concerning it before his description was made public; for though the triangular seeds were early known in Europe, and had even been an article of commerce for above a century, there was so little acquaintance with the manner of their growth, that it was generally supposed they grew each one on a separate stalk. As the name imports, they are natives of Brazil, flourishing chiefly in mighty forests on the banks of the Amazon and Orinoco, the tree being one of the most majestic in the New World, growing rapidly, and attaining the height of about a hundred and twenty feet, though the trunk rarely exceeds a yard in diameter. The branches bend downwards like palm fronds, the leaves, which are more than two feet in length, growing chiefly at the extremities. Humboldt was not in the country during the blossoming season, and the natives varied in their statements as to even the color of the flowers, some saying that they were violet, others affirming them to be yellow. The fruit, which does not make its appearance before the tree has attained its fifteenth year, is a drupe as large as a child's head, and externally not unlike a cocoa-nut, the woody part ripening in about two months after its development into a pericarp or shell half an inch thick, and so hard that the sharpest saw can hardly' penetrate it. To the central partition are attached the seeds or nuts, from fifteen to twenty-two being the general number in each, and as these become loosened in time, their rattle, when the fruit falls from the tree, is a most tantalizing sound to the poor monkeys, who, passionately fond of the nuts, are quite unable to break open the strong box in which nature has treasured them, and must therefore wait until the process of decay accomplishes this for them, when they too hold their juvia festival, joined in by squirrels, parrots, and most other small denizens of the forest, for the shells of the individual seeds offer no insuperable obstacle. The continual falling of such large bodies from so great a height, hard and heavy as they are, renders it rather dangerous to pass under these trees when the fruit is fully ripe; and it used to be said that in some places the savages were accustomed to carry wooden shields over their heads when they entered the forest at this season, but Humboldt did not find that the people among whom he travelled availed themselves of any such precaution.

The subject of nuts should hardly be discussed without adverting for a moment to two or three other kinds, which, though rarely forming a portion of our dessert in this country, are yet well known to most people, and whose general exclusion from the company of their more favored brethren is due perhaps to the capricious frown of fashion rather than to their being really deficient in merit. The green kernelled pistachio nut, for instance, in Sicily, where it is

largely cultivated, is preferred by many to the hazel or even the almond; and though it is not considered wholesome when raw, is much eaten on the Continent, either roasted or in comfits and confectionary. It is also used in ragouts and to make ratafias, and most readers of the Arabian Nights will remember that a kid stuffed with pistachios seems to have possessed great attractions for an Oriental palate. The tree is recorded to have been introduced into Rome by Vitellius, a fact which of itself may almost be taken as a gastronomic certificate.

The male and female blossoms of the pistachio grow not only separately but on distinct trees, so that in forming a plantation care must be taken to select a proper proportion of both, and to ensure fertilization the Sicilian cultivators usually gather the male blossoms and suspend them on the female plants. The nuts grow in clusters of little dry oval drupes, about the size of olives, with a thin rind and brittle two-valved shell, containing a single seed, red without and green within. This tree abounds in Syria and thrives generally in the same soil and climate as the olive, but will bear fruit even as far north as Paris. It is a variety of the pistachio (terebinthus) which yields the Cyprus turpentine used in medicine.

It is another member of the same family which produces the kidney-shaped cashew nut, a native of the West Indies. This tree, the Anacardium occidentale, bears sweet-scented blossoms, followed by what looks like a fruit of the apple kind, but which is in reality simply the peduncle, or flower-stalk, swollen and become succulent. Red or yellow in color, and of a very agreeable sub-acid flavor, this is not only eaten, but its fermented juice is made into a kind of spirit. From the end of this quasi fruit protrudes the rightful owner of the fructal title, our cashew nut, which is of the size and shape of a hare's kidney, but larger at the end by which it is attached to its applelike stalk. Between the two layers of the pericarp is a quantity of oil, of so acrid a nature that it often blisters the lips or fingers of those who crack the nut incautiously, and which has been used successfully to remove ringworm, corns, &c., but needs to be applied with great care. The kernel, which is much esteemed in Jamaica, abounds with milky juice, and is eaten raw when fresh; but after having been gathered some time, requires to be roasted, a process which frees it from the oil. Dried and broken, they are often put into Madeira wine, being thought greatly to improve its flavor. The trunk of the tree when tapped sends forth a milky fluid which is a natural marking ink, staining linen a deep and indelible black.

Last in this notice of the nutty tribe, though certainly by no means least, being indeed, in point of size, the monarch of them all, we reach at length the cocoa-nut, which, though seldom brought to table, is yet so universal a favorite with the juvenile portion of the community that there is perhaps hardly a schoolboy to be found (or schoolgirl either, it might be added,) who has not saved his halfpence for its sake, and deemed that day a memorable one when the

wholesale expenditure of a sixpence made him the envied possessor of a whole nut. This fruit, growing singly as it does, is one of a class of botanical mysteries, for the pistil of the blossom consists of three carpels or divisions, and, as a natural consequence, three ovules or embryo seeds in due time make their appearance; yet, instead of developing into a three-fold fruit, as, according to all Linnæan rules, it ought to do, two of these ovules are invariably absorbed or in some way disappear, and only a single nut comes to perfection, the sole eventual trace of its triple promise being the schoolboy's "monkey-face," the three indentations at the end of the shell. The fruit, however, being but one to all intents and purposes, has but a single germ to put forth, and thus requires but a single outlet, and therefore is it that two of these indentations are found to be but mere surface marks, while the third is a real doorway in the hard shell through which the sprout emerges which is to form the future plant. As the nut becomes old, the milk which it had contained disappears, and the hollow is filled with a spongy mass which is in fact the germinating organ. When deposited in the ground, the germ in a few days make its way through the hole provided for its exit, one end of the shoot strikes into the ground to form the root, the other sends up three pale green feathery leaves which soon unfold, the young plant then grows rapidly, in the course of four or five years begins to bear, and continues to do so without intermission during the rest of its life, which is protracted for near a century, and so luxuriantly that often as many as two hundred nuts in all stages, besides innumerable white blossoms, may be seen upon it at one time. The cocoa-tree flourishes best near the sea-side, the principal nourishment it craves being silex and soda; and in Brazil, where the supply of these is naturally deficient, they even supply salt to the soil where it is planted, in quantities as large as half a bushel to a single tree; and so essential is this considered to its prosperity that it is not neglected even when salt costs two shillings per pound. It is also found to thrive near human habitations better than in solitude, which causes the natives to say that the tree loves conversation, but it is probably owing to its deriving benefit from the ashes thrown out where fires have been made. It forms a beautiful feature of tropical scenery, and Humboldt speaks in glowing terms of the natural charms of those South American river banks, "the windings of which are marked by cocoa-trees, as the rivers of Europe are sometimes bordered by poplars and willows." As the nuts grow at the summit of the lofty stem, the palm tribes being unbranched, the best means of gathering them is by passing a hoop round the tree and the body of the climber, whose feet are also connected by a ligature, enabling him to clasp the trunk. The slovenly Malays, however, merely cut notches in the wood to assist them to ascend—a plan which is not only dangerous to themselves but also injurious to the tree.

The nut furnishes at once both food and drink, the milk, as it is

called, being a peculiarly refreshing and innocuous beverage in a warm climate, and the kernel, eaten as it is gathered, without any kind of preparation, is sufficiently substantial to enable a working man to subsist upon it without any other diet. It can, however, be prepared in various ways, and forms, when rasped, one ingredient in the real Indian curry, as it renders the dish more digestible than when ghee or oil is employed, it being sufficiently oleaginous for these to be dispensed with when it can be obtained; while a cake, delicious beyond all other cakes, is sometimes made from it in England, by mixing the grated nut with white of egg and sugar. The oil when extracted remains tasteless for twenty-four hours, and could any ́means be devised to preserve it so, might compete with any oil for table use; but it soon acquires a rancid flavor, and becomes unfit for culinary purposes, though largely employed in many other ways. The fibrous covering of the outer shell, too, used by the Indians from time immemorial, for matting, cordage, &c., has of late years been thus employed in England also, and is now in great demand; indeed every part of the tree is turned to some account, and it is thus, as a whole, so valuable that it has been remarked that a man who drops one of these nuts into the ground confers a greater and more certain benefit upon himself and upon posterity than does many a lifelong toil in less genial climes; while another writer asserts that he who has in his garden twelve cocoa and two jack-trees need make no further exertion, but is provided for for the rest of his days. If, however, not content with this modest competence, any enterprising individual should wish to adventure something more largely in nutgrowing, Professor Simmonds, in his "Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom," calculates that an outlay of £960 in forming a plantation would secure a net income of at least £1,200 per annum

for at least fifty years. Whether the prospect of such profits might

not make it worth while to establish a Limited Liability Cocoa-nut Planting Company is left as a nut for speculators to crack.

LII.-NOTICES OF BOOKS.

1. On the Relation of Ragged Schools to the Educational System of the Country, and their Consequent Claim to a full Share of the Parliamentary Grant. By Mary Carpenter.

2. Letter on the Debate in the House of Commons on Ragged and Industrial Schools. By Mary Carpenter.

3. Abstract of a Paper on Educational Help from the Government Grant, to the Destitute and Neglected Children of Great Britain. Read by Mary Carpenter, before the Statistical Section of the Scientific Association held at Oxford, June, 1860.

THE honored name of Mary Carpenter attached to these pamphlets is a guarantee that the statements therein contained, the opinions held, and the course of action advocated, are based on large and