so called. The epithet "horse" does not
imply any remedial use in diseases of that animal, but rather the
size and coarseness of this species as compared with the Sweet
Spanish Chestnut. In the same way we talk of the horse radish, the
horse daisy, and the horse leech. In Turkey the fruit is given to
horses touched or broken in the wind, but in this country horses
will not eat it. Nevertheless, Horse Chestnuts may be used for
fattening cattle, particularly sheep, the nuts being cut up, and
mixed with oats, or beans. Their bitterness can be removed by first
washing the Chestnuts in lime water. Medicinally, the ripe nut of
this tree is employed, being collected in September or October,
and deprived of its shell. The odour of the flowers is powerful and
peculiar. No chemical analysis of them, or of the nuts, has been
made, but they are found to contain tannin freely. Rich-coloured,
of a reddish brown, and glossy, these nuts have given their name
to a certain shade of mellow dark auburn hair. Rosalind, in _As
You Like It_, says "Orlando's locks are of a good colour: I' faith
your Chestnut was ever the only colour."

Of the Horse Chestnut tincture, two or three drops, with a spoonful
of water, taken before meals and at bedtime, will cure almost any
simple case of piles in a week. Also, carrying a Horse Chestnut
about the person, is said to obviate giddiness, and to prevent piles.

Taken altogether, the Horse Chestnut, for its splendour of
blossom, and wealth of umbrageous leaf, [104] its polished
mahogany fruit, and its special medicinal virtues, is _facile
princeps_ the belle of our English trees. But, like many a
ball-room beauty, when the time comes for putting aside the gay leafy
attire, it is sadly untidy, and makes a great litter of its cast-off
clothing.

It has been ingeniously suggested that the cicatrix of the leaf
resembles a horse-shoe, with all its nails evenly placed.

The Sweet Spanish Chestnut tree is grown much less commonly in
this country, and its fruit affords only material for food, without
possessing medicinal properties; though, in the United States of
America, an infusion of the leaves is thought to be useful for
staying the paroxysms of whooping-cough. Of all known nuts, this
(the Sweet Chestnut, Stover Nut, or Meat Nut) is the most
farinaceous and least oily; hence it is more easy of digestion than
any other. To mountaineers it is invaluable, so that on the
Apennines and the Pyrenees the Ches