CHAP. CV. CORYLA‘CEA. CA/RPINUS. 2009 
Fawkes, also, mentions them in his Bramham Park : — 
“* Here hornbeam hedges regularly grow, 
There hawthorn whitens, and wild roses blow.” 
Properties and Uses. The wood of the hornbeam is white, hard, heavy, 
tenacious, and very close-grained; but it will not take a good polish. Ac- 
cording to Varennes de Fenille, it shrinks a great deal in drying, and loses 
considerably in its weight. Some German authors, however, deny that it 
loses either more bulk or more weight in drying than the oak. According to 
the table given in the Dictionnaire des Eaux et Foréts, it weighs, when green, 
64 Ib.; half-dry, 57 lb.; and quite dry, 51 lb. It is very seldom used in con- 
struction ; partly because it is seldom found of proper dimensions, and partly 
because, when the tree attains a large size, the wood is apt to become shaky, 
like that of the chestnut. On this subject, Varennes de Fenille observes : 
“ The trunk is rarely well shaped, being scarcely ever round ; the arrangement 
of the fibres is singular, the annual layers never showing a regular circular 
line, like the layers of other trees, but being undulated and zigzag; and the 
transverse fibres, or medullary rays, stronger and wider apart than in most 
other trees. It is consequently very difficult to work: it is what the 
workmen call cross-grained, and is apt to rise in splinters under the work- 
man’s tool, peeling off in flakes, and rendering it very difficult to obtain a 
smooth section.” These objections do not apply to the hornbeam in its 
oung state. Its toughness and hardness (though the latter quality makes 
it difficult to work) render it excellent for all sorts of wheelwright’s work, 
and other kinds of rural carpentry ; particularly for the yokes of cattle, to 
which use the wood was applied (as we have already seen) by the Romans, 
and, since their time, in almost every country of which the tree is a_native. 
It is particularly well adapted for mill-cogs, for which, according to Evelyn, 
“it excels either yew or crab.” It is exceedingly strong; a piece 2 in. 
square, and 7 ft. 8 in. long, having supported 228 lb.; while a similar beam of 
ash broke under 200 lb.; one of birch, under 190 lb.; of oak, 185 1b.; of beech, 
165lb.; and of all other woods, very much less. Notwithstanding its powers 
of resistance, the hornbeam has very little flexibility ; it having bent, before it 
broke, only 10°; while the ash bent 21°, the birch 19°, the oak 12°, &c. 
Linnzeus observes that the wood is very white and tough, harder than haw- 
thorn, and capable of supporting great weights. 
As Fuel, the wood of the hornbeam should be placed in the highest rank. 
In France, it is preferred to every other for apartments, as it lights easily, and 
makes a bright flame, which burns equally, continues a long time, and gives 
out abundance of heat ; but, though its value in this respect surpasses that of 
the beech in the proportion of 1655 to 1540, yet the shape of the logs of 
hornbeam is so irregular, that a cord of it, measured as they measure willows 
(see p. 1470.), is not worth more, in Paris, in proportion to a cord of beech, 
than 1486 to 1540. In England, the hornbeam is considered to make lasting 
firewood ; and, according to Boutcher, it burns as clear as a candle. (Treat., 
&c., p. 58.), Evelyn, also, says “ it makes good firewood, where it burns like 
acandle; and was of old so employed : ‘ Carpinus taedas fissa facesque dabit.’ ” 
And Miller speaks of it as excellent fuel. Its charcoal is highly esteemed, 
and, in France and Switzerland, it is preferred to most others, not only for 
forges and for cooking by, but for making gunpowder; the workmen at the 
great gunpowder manufactory at Berne rarely using any other. The inner 
bark, according to Linnzus, is used for dyeing yellow. The leaves, when 
dried in the sun, are used in France as fodder ; and, when wanted for use in 
winter, the young branches are cut off in the middle of summer, between the 
first and second growth, and strewed or spread out in some place which is 
completely sheltered from the rain, to dry, without the tree being in the 
slightest degree injured by the operation. (Sec Dict. des Eaux et Forets, art. 
Charme.) 
For a Nurse Plant, and for Hedges, the hornbeam is particularly well 
adapted. The real “ excellency of the hornbeam,” says Marshall, “lies in its 
