CHAPTER XLV.
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.”
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.