136 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



leather owes both these qualities to its preparation with 

 birch oil. Furniture, wooden shoes, brooms, are other 

 needs that the birch is equal to supplying, nor must we 

 overlook its value as a stimulus to learning and correct 

 conduct. This, in fact, is placed first by Coles in his Paradise 

 of Plants. He declares that " the civill uses whereunto 

 the birch tree serveth are many ; as, for the punishment 

 of children, both at home and at school ; for it hath an 

 excellent influence upon them, to quiet them when they 

 are out of order ; and therefore some call it Make-peace." 

 Shakespeare warns us how fond fathers, not sufficiently 

 zealous in applying " the threatening twigs of birch," find 

 in time " the rod more mocked than feared " ; while 

 Shenstone, in his charming poem of the " Village School- 

 mistress," tells how a birchen-tree doth rise hard by the 

 litde home of learning, an^ how, as its branches waved 

 in the breeze, the pupils shuddered — 



And as they look'd, they found their horror grew, 

 And shaped it into rods, and tingled at the view.' 



• 

 ASH (Fraxinus Excelsior) 



Gilpin, while he calls the oak the Hercules of the woods, 

 ascribes to the ash the position of Venus. The idea is 

 forced and fanciful, but we at least accept it as a testimony 



bearing tapping in four or five places and being none the worse for it. A 

 pipe is then inserted and some sort of vessel suspended to catch the sap. 

 This sap is then boiled with sugar ; after cooling it is put into a cask, being 

 drunk when it is a year old. 



' But though no more his brow severe, nor dread 

 Of birchen sceptre awes my riper age, 

 A sterner tyrant rises to my view, 

 With deadlier weapon arm'd. 



Jago, " Edgehill." 



