XV. 2. THE WHITE ASH. 333 



of the United States, equals ashen timber in elasticity; and its 

 hardness and strengih, and other valuable properties, are so 

 considerable, that of our species as of that of England, might 

 be pronounced the eulogium of Spencer : — 



" The ash for nothing ill." 



"It serves the soldier," as Evelyn says, (pp. 156-7,) "and 

 heretofore the scholar, who made use of the inner bark to write 

 on, before the invention of paper. The carpenter, wheelwright 

 and cartwright find it excellent for ploughs, axle-trees, wheel- 

 rings, harrows, bulls; it makes good oars, blocks for pullies and 

 shefls, (shieves,) as seamen name them. For drying herrings, 

 no wood is like it, and the bark is good for the tanning of nets ; 

 and like the elm, for the same property, (of not being so apt to 

 split and scale,) is excellent for tenons and mortices ; also for 

 the cooper, turner, and thatcher; nothing is like it for our garden 

 palisade-hedges, hop-yards, poles and spars, handles and stocks 

 for tools, spade-trees, &c. In sum, the husbandman cannot be 

 without the ash for his carts, ladders, and other tackling, from 

 the pike to the plough, spear and bow ; for of ash were they 

 formerly made, and therefore reckoned amongst those woods 

 which, after long tension, has a natural spring, and recovers 

 its position; so as in peace and war it is a wood in highest 

 request. In short, so useful and profitable is this tree, next to 

 the oak, that every prudent lord of a manor should employ one 

 acre of ground with ash to every twenty acres of other land, 

 since in as many years it would be more worth than the land 

 itself." 



There are three species of ash growing in Massachusetts. — 

 the White, the Red, and the Black. The Yellow is found in 

 Maine, and may, perhaps, belong to this State. 



Sp. 1. The White Ash. F. acuminata. Lamarck. 



Figured in Michaux, Sylva, III, Plate 118. 



The white ash is a graceful tree, rising, in the forest, to the 

 height of seventy or eighty feet, with a straight trunk and a 

 diameter of three feet or more at the base. On an open plain, 



