. A description and history of vegetable substances, used in the arts, and in domestic economy . ive tree, in the mountainous partsof the south of Europe ; and it is also found inNorth America, from New York to Carolina. TheCastagno de cento cavalli, or chesnut of the hun-dred horses, upon Mount Etna, is probably thelargest tree in Europe, being more than two hundredfeet in circumference. Brjdone, a traveller who wroteabout fifty years ago, has given a particular descrip-tion of this celebrated tree :— From this place it is not less than five or sixmiles to the great chesnut trees, through for
. A description and history of vegetable substances, used in the arts, and in domestic economy . ive tree, in the mountainous partsof the south of Europe ; and it is also found inNorth America, from New York to Carolina. TheCastagno de cento cavalli, or chesnut of the hun-dred horses, upon Mount Etna, is probably thelargest tree in Europe, being more than two hundredfeet in circumference. Brjdone, a traveller who wroteabout fifty years ago, has given a particular descrip-tion of this celebrated tree :— From this place it is not less than five or sixmiles to the great chesnut trees, through forests grow-ing out of the lava, in several places almost impas-sable. Of these trees there are many of an enormoussize, but the Castagno de cento cavalli is by muchthe most celebrated. I have even found it marked inan old map of Sicily, published near an hundredyears ago; and in all the maps of Etna and its en-virons, it makes a very conspicuous figure. I own I I 2 88 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. was by no means struck wth its appearance, as itdoes not seem to be one tree, but a bush of five laroe. Chesnut—Fagus castanea. trees growing together. We complained to our guidesof the imposition; when they unanimously assuredus, that by the miiversal tradition, and even testimonyof the countrs, all these were once united in one THE CHE8NUT. Sf stem; that their crrandfathers once remembered this,when it was looked upon as the a:lory of the forest,and visited from all quarters; that for many yearspast, it had been reduced to the venerable ruin webeheld. We beijan to examine it with more atten-tion, and found that there is an appearance that theseiive trees were really once united in one. The openin^^in the middle is at present prodipous; and it does,indeed, require faith to believe that so vast a spacewas once occupied by solid timber. But there is noappearance of bark on the inside of any of the stumps,nor on the sides that are opposite to one another. and I measured it separate
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