726 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



blood" hit the keynote of ash charac- nursery beds in the spring. Readily 

 teristics, for the tree has been most in- transplanted to forest sites in the sec- 

 timately our strength since the earliest ond year provided that the tap root is 

 stone ages. In fact, the Edda, the Sa- cut and the seedling transplanted in 

 cred Tree, whose crown upheld the the autumn of the tirst year, 

 heavens, and under whose roots burnt For soil preference the white ash 

 the hells, of the most ancient mythology likes a rich moist loam, any base ex- 

 of the human race, was the ash, and. cept sand, anywhere not too dry, and 

 with its blood-red flowrets, like drops it needs lots of sun. The black ash 

 of human blood along the twigs, the tree v;ants a more swampy location, and 

 well bears out the poet's similie. Since both of them give a handsome crown of 

 the world began man has made his bows leaves with many branches, the leaves 

 and his spear shafts, and has split out turning to copper and purple-green in 

 his arrows from the ash, and, though the autumn. In the forest the ash has 

 it belongs to the same family as the a tall columnar trunk with no side 

 olive, the symbol of peace, we as a race branches until it reaches the crown of 

 would cheerfully give all the olives in the forest, when it branches out with a 

 the world for one stark, heathen ash round heavy crown. In Europe the 

 tree ! Aside from its warlike qualities thrifty French grow it in oak forests in 

 the ash is the cjueen of the forest for the proportion of about one ash to four 

 beauty, and the wolf of the forest for oaks, and also use it as shade over 

 soil consumption. When an ash tree coppice growth. I have seen whole 

 is through it takes a whole revolution forests of it forming a light shade over 

 of beech to restore the exhausted soil, young coppice shooting up from old 

 and, to insure that no other tree shall oak stumps, the ash trees being spaced 

 share the soil with it, the rain drippings about forty feet. Over there its prin- 

 from its leaves kill every other sapling cipal enemy is the cantharides or Span- 

 that tries to make a start. Even its ish fly ; indeed, in the south of France 

 own young cannot live under it, and, it is grown to attract these insects, 

 to insure that they get a fair start, Na- which are then collected in great num- 

 ture provides a seed like a small winged bers for medicinal purposes. Our own 

 javelin that will fly to a considerable white ash is immune from Spanish fly 

 distance and then strikes deep into the attacks, so it also is now being largely 

 soil, point first. And, to insure high introduced in the clay base forests of 

 winds to carry them far, these samaras the Seine basin, in both oak standard 

 have so tough a stem as to hang on forests and oak coppice, 

 until late in the winter when only an We have four principal species of 

 unusual gale can tear them loose. ash trees, the white, black, green and 

 ^\'ith its seven to nine leaflets on the blue. The wood of the first is strong, 

 leaf stalk, the ash is like to be mistaken light, elastic and, beyond a certain point, 

 for a hickory, but an inspection of the brittle. The name ash comes down to 

 fruit or flowers will decide at once, us unchanged from the Saxon word 

 The deep red flowrets in small bunches, acsc, a pike, and the latin fraxiniis from 

 sessile on the twigs, are nothing like its sudden snap oft' short when over 

 anything on a hickory tree and, later, strained. The white ash is known from 

 the bunches of long, winged samara, the black by its bark, which is ridgy 

 like maple keys, in no way resemble a with the striations crossing at a long 

 hickory nut ! Both American white slant, giving innumerable lozenges of 

 ash and European P. Excelsior are bark, and by the short stems of its 

 easily obtained from nurseries, at prices leaflets, for the black ash has sessile 

 ranging from 75 cents to $2 for spcci- leaflets and a soft gray bark without 

 mens from 10 feet to 2^ inches diam- lozenges. The wood of the latter is 

 eter and 25 feet high ; or they can be more pliant and darker in color, but it, 

 propagate^ from seed by collecting too, snaps oft' short like a biscuit when 

 from the trees in the fall, putting in the limit of its endurance is reached, 

 heaps in compost piles (which rids Often called the "hoop" ash because in 

 them of their wings) and planting in the backwoods, hoops and baskets are 



