"We can," says Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, "from our own experience, bear testimony to the truth of what Evelyn says here as to the excellence of Beech leaves for mattresses. We used always to think that the most luxurious and refreshing bed was that which prevails universally in Italy, and which consists of an absolute pile of mattresses filled with the elastic spathe of the Indian corn--which beds have the advantage of being soft as well as elastic--and we have always found the sleep enjoyed on them to be peculiarly sound and restorative. But the beds made of Beech leaves are really not a whit behind them in these qualities, while the fragrant smell of green tea which the leaves retain is most gratifying." "The wood of the Beech is preferred to all other wood for plane stocks, saw handles, and cylinders used in polishing glass. "Botanists are unable to find more than one kind of Beech, believing that the distinctions of '_white_' and '_red_' Beech in common use among the people describes but one species. "The Beech is said never to be struck by lightning. In traveling through a forest country, many trees of a different species, such as the Oak, and, more commonly than any tree within my observation, the Hemlock, may be seen riven by lightning, but never the Beech. "A most remarkable species of the Beech is said to have been discovered by accident in Germany. In early spring, when the leaves of the purple Beech are agitated by the wind, during bright sunshine, their clear red gives the tree the appearance of being on fire: an effect, Bosc observes, so truly magical, that it is scarcely credible by those who have not seen it."--_Loudon._ THE CHESTNUT-TREE. This tree is distinguished by the rapidity of its growth and the excellence of its wood for posts and rails--the latter lasting half a century--the good quality of the nut it bears, and the age and size to which it attains. "Some of the most remarkable trees of Europe are Chestnut-trees. On Mount Ætna is the famous _Castagno di cento cavalli_, so called from its having sheltered a hundred mounted cavaliers. Brydon found this, in 1770, two hundred and four feet in circumference, and it had the appearance of five distinct trees. A century before, when seen by Kircher, they were united, so that probably it had been one tree. The Forworth Chestnut, in England, was fifty-two feet in girth in 1820, when measured by Strutt. Near Sanserre, in France, is a tree of more than ten feet in diameter at six feet from the ground. It is supposed to be a thousand years old." The largest measurements given of the Chestnut in this country are of one in Bolton, with an erect, undivided trunk forty or fifty feet; three feet from the ground it measured seventeen feet in circumference.