ON THE ASH, BEECH, AND OTHER WHITE-WOODED TREES.
THE ASH (_Fraxinus excelsior_), when well-grown and in good
foliage, is one of our most charming trees; its light, graceful, and
agreeably-coloured leaves, united with a graceful disposition of lithe,
smoothly-formed limbs, altogether fully entitle it to be considered as
the “Venus of the Forest.”
The leaves of the common ash are pinnate, with from three to four pairs
of leaflets and one terminal leaflet. This latter is sometimes absent
when the apex is bifoliate, and a form called the double-leaf is
produced, which even at this day is reputed by the rustics to be capable
of working various charms.
It is this pinnate pendent leaf which, loosely hanging on the flexile,
more or less pendent branches, gives so much grace to the tree.
We have been much pleased with some groups of ash trees in Earl
Bathurst’s park (Oakley Park) at Cirencester; but, as Strutt well
observes,—
It is in mountain scenery that the ash appears to peculiar
advantage; waving its slender branches over some precipice which
just affords it soil sufficient for its footing, or springing
between crevices of rock, a happy emblem of the hardy spirit which
will not be subdued by fortune’s scantiness. It is likewise a
lovely object by the side of some crystal stream, in which it views
its elegant pendent foliage, bending, Narcissus-like, over its own
charms.
But charming as is the ash when in its most perfect foliage, yet as its
æstivation is usually so late, and the fall of its leaves so early and
rapid, it often displays all but naked limbs, even amidst the freshness
of spring, as well as during the autumnal tinting of almost all other
trees. It would seem that its buds cannot expand in spring frosts,
whilst the first frost of autumn will frequently make the whole foliage
drop in one mass beneath the influence of the succeeding sunshine. This
susceptibility to spring cold is doubtless at the base of the country
weather predictions which are made to depend upon the behaviour of the
ash in respect to its time of displaying its leaves:—
When the oak’s before the ash,
You may then expect a dash.
Generally held to mean, that if the leaves of the oak are seen before
those of the ash, a fine dry summer may be expected; but, on the
contrary,—
With the ash before the oak,
You may then expect a soak.
The truth of all this may be that a cold wet spring, which would retard
the bursting of the buds of the ash, may be expected to be followed by a
fine summer; whilst, on the contrary, a genial forward spring is often
succeeded by a wet summer.
Selby remarks on the early fall of the leaf, which, as he says, is
“after the first autumnal frost, however early that may happen; and
this, in general, without undergoing any change of colour, or
contributing by the ’sear and yellow leaf’ to the waning beauty of
autumnal foliage.” On this account, Sir T. D. Lauder recommends that
“ash trees should be sparingly planted around a gentleman’s residence,
to avoid the risk of their giving to it a cold, late appearance, at a
season when all nature should smile.”
It should be noted that although the ash seems to be so susceptible of
cold, it nevertheless ripens its seeds most perfectly in any part of
Great Britain; and besides this, these seeds, or “keys,” when naturally
sown, come up with the greatest certainty, so that young ash may be
removed from the wood and used for planting.
This renders it easy to cultivate young plants from seed; to which end,
when the ripened keys are gathered in the autumn, they should be well
examined to see that the seed has not been eaten out by the ash-weevil,
as it will most certainly be if a small orifice be observable on one
side of the key or samara, just over the seed.
In growing ash with a view to profit, it is recommended to plant it by
itself in belts or plantations, which are called ash-holts, as it
usually, when well started, grows upwards too fast to be a good nurse to
other trees, which latter would suffer from the whipping of the longer
heavy flexile stems of the ash.[29]
[29] Selby says, “The pitting system should always be adopted in
planting the ash, for the roots, even in young plants, are too numerous,
large, and spreading, to be properly inserted by the splitting or [T]
method.” We would also add, that they should be planted as soon upon
removal as possible.
It is too often planted in hedge-rows, where it is exceedingly
objectionable, not only from the ill effects on the scene of
interminable rows of one kind of tree, but the drip and the peculiar
growth of the roots render it most destructive to the growth of crops
planted beneath its shade.
The uses to which the wood of this tree is turned are multifarious in
the extreme. Walking-sticks are made from ash saplings; and as, from
youth to age, it is so tough and elastic, it is used for handles and
other parts of farm implements and machinery of all kinds. The
wheelwright and coachmaker employ the wood extensively; so also the
cooper. As a firewood its “offal” is always welcome, as it burns with a
clear, bright flame, and that nearly as well in the green as in the dry
state; and the whole tree is so rich in potash that this alkali is often
made from its trimmings and loppings.
We had already mentioned some of the superstitions connected with the
ash, and at p. 250 will be found directions for making a shrew-ash; we
shall now, therefore, only direct attention to another practice which
this tree was employed for, even to a somewhat recent period, as it will
account for some curious growths of ash which will sometimes be met
with. Evelyn says:—
I have heard it affirmed with great confidence, and upon
experience, that the rupture to which many children are obnoxious,
is healed, by passing the infant through a wide cleft made in the
bole or stem of the growing ash-tree; it is then carried a second
time round the ash, and caused to repass the same aperture as
before. The rupture of the child being bound up, it is supposed to
heal as the cleft of the tree closes and coalesces.
As, then, the healing of the child would seem to depend upon that of
the tree, this potent charm is not always successful, as may be gathered
from the fact that young trees have been met with which never healed at
all, and we recollect one of these, of which the accompanying wood-cut
is a copy, having been presented at a Conversazione of the
Worcestershire Natural History Society. The tree from whence it was
taken was of about ten years of age. Selby says that an instance of this
use of the ash is “related by the Rev. T. Bree, in the _Magazine of
Natural History_, where a ruptured child was made to pass through the
chasm of a young ash-tree, split for the purpose, in Warwickshire.”
[Illustration]
These facts seem to point to the acting upon such superstitions to
within a comparatively recent period, though doubtless the drawing a
child beneath the stolon or shoot of a bramble that has rooted at its
extremity, and which we have known to be gravely recommended by a wise
(!) woman, would be equally efficacious, and, upon the whole, easier to
perform.
Evelyn further says that “the chemists exceedingly commend the seed of
the ash to be an admirable remedy for the stone.” “But,” he adds,
“whether by the power of magic or nature, I determine not.” We would
suggest that it was by the power its roots possess of riving the natural
rock. So stone-crop, from decomposing the stones on which it grows, was
held to have the like effect. How strange, then, it is that with such
evidences of the truth of the motto,—
Similia similibus curantur,
physicians of the present day should refuse to listen to this still (and
very small) voice of nature, and not all become homœopaths! Such may
well be the reasoning of many an old woman who still pretends to cures
either by magic spells or infinitesimal globules.
Two interesting varieties of ash are met with: the pendulous or
weeping-ash, which, Sir W. Hooker informs us, is said to have been first
discovered in a field at Gamlingay, and the _Fraxinus heterophylla_, in
which the leaf is simple, that is, it is in one piece, more the form of
a laurel-leaf than the usual pinnated ash-leaf. These variations are
easily perpetuated by grafting, and are here only mentioned on account
of their peculiar habits.
* * * * *
THE BEECH (_Fagus sylvatica_) is admitted by all authors to be a native
of Great Britain, and if the many magnificent giants one here and there
meets with be admitted as proofs of indigenous origin, few trees can put
in a more imposing claim. The celebrated Burnham beeches, so well known
to artists and lovers of nature in general, and the many fine examples
of this tree in the Cotteswolds, upon which range it is said to grow as
a weed, testify to the age and size to which the beech may attain.
The plantations of beeches in Oakley Park are well worthy of note in
speaking of the Cotteswolds, for although they have been planted here,
yet the fine, tall, clean balks, lofty tops, and the “twilight shades”
beneath, will not soon be forgotten by the author, who, beneath their
boughs, through the liberality of Earl Bathurst, “has felt them all his
own,” as says the poet Gray of the Burnham beeches. Here, too, has he
mused, though not, like Pope, in “thoughts that burn,” yet much
wondering at the curious plants which choose such seclusion for their
dwelling. Of these the following may be here enumerated, as they really
form part of the natural history of the beech wood:—
_Listera Nidus-avis_—Birds’-nest Orchis.
_Habenaria chlorantha_—Butterfly Orchis.
_Epipactis grandiflora_—Large White Helleborine.
_Epipactis ensifolia_—Narrow-leaved White Helleborine.
_Epipactis latifolia_—Broad-leaved Helleborine.
_Monotropa Hypopithys_—Yellow Birds’-nest.
_Pyrola minor_—Lesser Winter Green.
Such a list of plants found in the beech woods is sufficient to make
their locality remarkable, and if we add to them the
_Tuber cibarium_—Truffle,
_Morchella esculenta_—Morell,
_Elaphomyces muricatus_—Sharp-warted _Elaphomyces_,
—these, with various other curious fungi, will be sufficient to make
Oakley Park and its beeches a botanical habitat of no mean pretension.
As regards the truffle, we may mention that we have heard that a former
Earl Bathurst kept dogs for the purpose of hunting them. We have
partaken of the morells from this park several times, and always found
them delicious, and can recommend them stuffed with sausage-meat and
fried, as a dish for an epicure: we have seen them exposed for sale in
the greengrocers’ shops of the good old town of Cirencester.
But we are sadly digressing from the subject of the beech tree in his
history as a forest and ornamental tree. Under the latter aspect, then,
most authors, except Gilpin, view the beech to hold a very high place.
Coleman, in his “Woodlands,” considers that,—
Among our truly indigenous forest-trees, the beech must certainly
rank as second only to the oak for majesty and picturesqueness;
while, for the union of grace and nobility, it may claim precedence
over every other member of our sylva.
Having said this, we must, as a matter of course, dissent from the
opinion of Gilpin, the highly-gifted author of “Forest Scenery,”
who has, as we think, unjustly impugned the ornamental character of
this generally favourite tree, and this because he had some
crotchets of his own about landscape composition, and the shape
that trees ought to take to make them good subjects for the pencil.
The beech did not happen to fit itself to his theory, and so he
quarrelled with it, and called it hard names.
Any one who has ever seen a well-grown beech tree, such as was once our
delight to visit at Hartley Bottom, near the source of the Thames, or
who has seen such masses of beech glowing with autumnal tints as may be
witnessed in a journey on the Great Western Railway between Swindon and
Cheltenham, will never speak disparagingly of the beech, which we think
noble, alike by itself as in masses, or as a sylvan denizen with other
trees.
But it has other claims besides that of ornament; it is a highly useful
wood, much employed in carpentry, cabinet-work, and turnery; in the
making of charcoal; and increasingly so in the manufacture of
wood-spirit.
As a firewood it excels most others, as it burns with a clear flame,
even when wet, and leaves behind only a small quantity of ash. How,
indeed, could it possess much ash when it flourishes in positions where
scarcely four inches of soil covers up the oolitic stone, its roots
spreading over the rock and occasionally dipping into its fissures in a
manner most aptly illustrative of the fact that this tree really derives
but little nutrition from the soil, the rocks upon which it grows, for
the most part, serving to moor the giant in position that it may spread
forth its leaves to feed upon the atmosphere?
The beech is easily propagated from its fruit—“mast”—which, indeed, so
readily grows beneath the trees that thousands might be obtained for the
purpose of pricking out in nursery lines, if looked after. The usual
method of cultivation is to gather the mast in the autumn, to keep it
well in sand, and sow in the spring. After two years it is pricked out
in nursery rows, and is fit for planting in three years more.
Where once established it will soon spread, as the mast grows
sporadically with great readiness, and this tree has a faculty for
extending undisputed possession; thus, in America will be found
wide-extended forests of scarcely anything but beech, which, though
perhaps a little varied from our own, is yet doubtless of the same
species.
There are several ornamental varieties of beech to be obtained from the
nurserymen, some of which are more curious than useful; but we must not
omit to mention the Copper Beech (_Fagus sylvatica_, var. _purpurea_).
This, judiciously disposed, is capable of affording a great charm to the
wood, and more especially in plantations near the homestead. They are
fast-growing trees, and at present are here and there to be met with of
considerable size. We once possessed a couple on our lawn, the largest
of which must have been nearly six feet in circumference; and what from
its colour, the thickness of its foliage, and the fine sweep of its
branches, it was capable of yielding shade and shelter of a most perfect
and agreeable kind.
The drip of the beech is prejudicial to cultivation, we think, from the
circumstance that the hard, though thin, leaves are so difficult of
decomposition that where they fall they leave a thick carpet covering up
the ground. If, then, these trees are in such a position as to do
mischief from this cause, the leaves should be removed, and they will,
if stored, be found very useful in making hotbeds, linings to pots, and
other gardening work.
Beech is less liable to insect attacks than almost any other tree; the
most annoying is that of the _Aphis_, especially when near the house, as
this harbours insects of all kinds, and the exuding honey-dew much
injures the aspect of the tree.
Beech timber would be more valuable than it is were it not for its
liability, when in panels, tables, and furniture, to be attacked and
bored by weevils. We once had our house so infested with these little
beetles, derived from some furniture of this wood, as to cause
considerable alarm; but fortunately our domestic’s knowledge of natural
history in the matter of bugs was somewhat defective, as she had
mistaken the nature of the weevil. This pest can be removed by boiling
in oil; but it is a great drawback to the use of a wood which otherwise
might be applied to various domestic purposes.