128 TRANSACTIONS OP ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



IX. The Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and its Cultivation} By John 

 Nisbet, D.GEc, F.S.I. 



Among the trades using ash timber, and more particularly 

 among carriage manufacturers and makers of agricultural im- 

 plements, considerable inconvenience is being felt from the want 

 of adequate supplies of mature timber of English growth. There 

 is now said to be such a scarcity of marketable ash throughout 

 Britain, that manufacturers have been forced to make inquiries 

 abroad for this class of wood, though none of it comes up to the 

 standard of the home-grown product with regard to the tough- 

 ness, density of grain, and elasticity which constitute its special 

 technical value. 



With such slow-growing crops as timber, it will of course take 

 fully two generations before ash, now planted, will attain its full 

 technical and financial maturity. But, as prices now rule at 

 from £7 to £11 per load of 40 cubic feet of rough planks as 

 turned out by the sawyer, as the demand is constant and practic- 

 ally certain to remain so, and as the prospect in future is far 

 more likely to be in the direction of gradual enhancement of 

 price rather than towards diminution, the present occasion seems 

 a favourable opportunity for bringing under the notice of land- 

 owners a rtsumi of the sylvicultural characteristics and require- 

 ments of the ash when grown on strictly economic principles, and 

 not chiefly for ornamental purposes. Northampton and Leicester 

 are more particularly suitable for ash-growing, as their produce 

 ranks first in quality and has long obtained the highest market 

 rate. 



From its spontaneous distribution throughout Scandinavia, and 

 thence southwards to the shores of the Mediterranean, the ash 

 proves itself to be a tree capable of enduring both the extreme 

 cold of a northern winter and the great summer heat of southern 

 Europe. But, at the same time, it is decidedly sensitive to late 

 frosts in spring throughout low-lying, moist localities, and here 

 even requires nurses to protect it while young. The shoot within 

 the terminal bud is apt to get nipped with frost, while the shoots 

 in the two side-buds opening later are spared. The result of this 



1 Reprinted by permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office, 

 from The Journal of the Board of Agriculture. 



