The alder is not rated high among us as a timber tree, though good boles are sometimes in request, for what precise purpose I cannot tell. Mr. Elwes states that he sold three hundred alders standing for £100, which he reckoned to be at the rate of 4d. or 5d. a cubic foot. This must be considered an excellent return from land that was fit for no other crop. Clogmakers take alder of suitable size as readily as birch, giving as much as £40 an acre for coppice, which will be fit for cutting again in twenty years. One of the most picturesque scenes in forestry is a summer encampment of clog-cutters.
In Scotland probably the demand for alder for making herring barrels would be steady and inexhaustible, were there any regularity in the supply; but in this, as in other British forest products, so much uncertainty is caused by the haphazard and capricious felling practised by landowners in general, that the trade derives its supplies of staves from abroad. For outdoor purposes, the timber is far too perishable under vicissitudes of wet and dry; but for piles under water it is most durable. Evelyn states, without quoting his authority, that the Rialto at Venice is founded upon alder piles. For three hundred years charcoal made from alder was more highly esteemed than that from any other wood for making gunpowder; but modern explosives have caused it to be in less request nowadays.
There may be some trout-fishers who have not learnt that an effective way of taking the objectionable glitter from a gut cast is to draw it two or three times through an alder leaf. Evelyn says that such leaves afford great relief to footsore travellers if laid within the stocking.
In his Sylva Florifera (1823), Henry Phillips admits us to a glimpse into the domestic economy of our great-grandmothers, who had to contend with certain difficulties from which modern households are happily exempt. "The good housewife," he says, "is not unacquainted with a property in the leaves [of alder], with which she strews her chambers before sweeping, for, when fresh, they are covered with a glutinous liquor that entangles fleas like birds in birdlime."
The English name "alder" has been disguised by the addition of the d. It was alr in Anglo-Saxon, r taking the place of the Latin n in alnus, which is preserved in the French aune. In one form or another it exists in all Teutonic dialects; we, in Scotland, retain very closely the Anglo-Saxon sound when we speak of "eller," though we have allowed the intrusive d to slip into Elderslie, the paternal home of William Wallace. This tree has given rise to countless place-names; in England—Alresford on the Itchen, Allerton (eight or nine times), Allerdale, Ellerbeck, Ellerburn, Ellerton, and so on; in Scotland—Allershaw in Lanarkshire, Allerton in Cromarty, Allers near Glasgow, Allerbeck in Dumfriesshire, Ellerrigs, Argyllshire; Ellerslie, in several counties, etc. I incline to think that the frequent and puzzling name Elrig or Eldrig may be associated with alders.
In Gaelic the alder is called fearn, which appears in a multitude of place-names, such as Balfern, Glenfarne, Farnoch, Fearn, Fernie, and Fernaig. The consonant f being liable in Gaelic to be silenced by aspiration, the descriptive name amhuinn-fhearn, alder river, has been worn down into Nairn, and probably some, at least, of the numerous streams called Earn or Erne derive their titles from a similar contraction.
Among the exotic species of alder I only know of one worth attention for ornamental purposes, to wit, the heart-leaved alder (A. cordata); which, being found indigenous only in Corsica and Southern Italy, might scarcely be expected to take kindly to our humid climate. It does so, however, growing as vigorously as our native alder, and proving somewhat more decorative. The leaves are of a shining, dark green with lighter undersides, and the cones are at least an inch long, carried erect.
The grey alder (A. incana) has nothing to recommend it; except, perhaps, to Norwegian anglers, who know how the fieldfares nest among its thickets in garrulous colonies. It is not easy to understand how the British Isles have missed having this species as a native, for it is very widely distributed over Europe from the shores of the Arctic Ocean on the north to Servia and the Apennines on the south. It is also spread widely over the northern United States and Canada.
TULIP TREE
At Wadham College, Oxford