1084 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the skins of beavers constituted a con- 

 siderable article of commerce. 



Ash was one of the woods of which 

 tlax brakes were made when home- 

 manufactured linen was a valuable 

 article. Saddle trees and stirrups were 

 among indispensable commodities in the 

 making of which the wood was useful. 

 Long-drawn splits bottomed rude chairs. 

 It is said that the term "cane ash" date; 

 from that custom. The splits were nar- 

 row, thin ribbons of ash, stripped from 

 liillets. and they were woven into chair 

 bottoms and backs. They resembled the 

 ribbons of cane or rattan commonly em- 

 ployed in chair work. The term "cane 

 ash" is yet heard in some parts of the 

 south, but is generally' applied to e.vtra 

 fine timber without reference to the use 

 that may be made of it. 



Three long bows procured \ ery early 

 on the coast of \'irginia by explorers, 

 and ni)\v in the Ashmolean Museum, U.\- 

 furd, England, are said to be ash. They 

 show the use which the Indians made of 

 this wood when they had the whole 

 forest to choose from. The three bows 

 at O.xford are highly polished and are 

 nearly as black as ebony. The Indians 

 Ijrnbably strained or painted the wood. 

 White men made bows of ash in \'ir- 

 ginia and elsewhere in the East, but not 

 the kind used in archery. Such bows 

 formed part of the equipinent of heavy 



a commodity in the English market at an early date, and freight wagons. They arched six or seven feet above the 



prior to 17S9 had gained such firm hnld that it had bottoms of the wagon bed and the waterproof cover or 



largely supplanted the ash from the llal- 



tic Provinces. It was made into oars, as 



had been done in Portugal, and as is now 



done in the United States. The English 



employed it also for capstans, levers, 



bars, blocks, handspikes and jjins. 



Long before the Revolution the farm- 

 ers of Susquehanna Countv, Penns\l 



vania, fenced their lanil with rails split 



from the unusually tine ash trees there. 



It is probable that the cu-tom of putting 



ash to such use was general at that time, 



though the fact is not often mentioned 



in pioneer accounts. .\^li splits well, and 



is an ideal rail timber in all things except 



that it has poor lasting (|u;ilities. Rails 



decayed in a few years. 



It is recorded in the liax'els of John 



Lamson, early in the scNcnteenth cen- 

 tury, that ash bark was i^nnd food for 



beavers. That seems a mailer of trifling 



moment at the present d;i\-, but it jios- a white ash stand 



sessed some iniDfjrtanCe at 'l time when This is a typical and almost pure growth of white ash at Mount Cilead, Ohio. On the left side 



' * ' -i uniL jjj^ trees are too near together for proper growth and the poorer ones should be cut out. 



..\ IIMC WIlriK .JlSII 



This tree is in South Park. Rochester. X. V. The white ash usually reaches a height of 

 seventy to eighty feet and in the open the crown is decidedly round topped and extends 

 almost to the ground. In the forest the trees are usually tall and massive, clear from 

 branches for a considerable distance from the ground, and with a narrow, somewhat pyra- 

 midal crown. 



