CHESTNUT. The Spanish or Sweet Chestnut, Castanea vesca (natural order, Corylaceoe), is a stately and magnificent tree, native of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, but also ripening its fruit in sheltered situations as far north as Scotland. It lives very long, attains a large size, spreading its branches widely, and it has large lanceolate serrate leaves, long pendulous male catkins, with fewer inconspicuous female flowers, the fruit being an echinate capsule, containing from two to five nuts, of which seldom more than three are mature. The largest known chestnut tree is the famous Castagno di cento caυalli, or the chestnut of a hundred horses, on the slopes of Mount Etna, a tree which when measured nearly a hundred years ago, by Count Borch, was found to have a circumference of 190 feet. By many observers it has been maintained that this colossal tree consisted of a fusion of several trunks; but many specimens not much smaller exist in the neighbourhood, and by digging around it has been found that all the trunks end in one root. The wood of the sweet chestnut is valued by cabinet-makers and coopers; and among European timbers it was at one time esteemed second to the oak, which it so closely resembles that in old wood-work the two timbers are very difficult to distinguish. Chestnuts (the fruit of the tree) are extensively imported into Great Britain, and roasted are much eaten as a delicacy. In a raw state they have a sweet taste, but are difficult of digestion. The trees are very abundant in the south of Europe, and chestnuts bulk largely in the food resources of the poor in Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. In Italy the kernels are ground into meal, and used for thickening soups, and even for bread-making. In North America, the fruits of an ...