OLEACEZ. 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 45 
in the manufacture of agricultural implements, for the handles of tools, in carriage-building, for oars 
and furniture, and in the interior finish of buildings. The inner bark of the White Ash has been 
successfully employed in dysmenorrhcea,! and in homeopathic practice.” 
The earliest description of Fraxinus Americana appears in the Flora Virginica of Clayton, 
published in 1739.3 By Aiton‘ it was said to have been introduced into English gardens in 1724 by 
Mark Catesby, although the Ash described by Catesby is another species. 
The rapid growth of the White Ash, its freedom from disease and the attacks of insects, its dense 
crown of large dark green leaves, its clean gray trunk, the beauty of its foliage in autumn and of its 
leafless branches in winter, make the White Ash, in spite of its late leafage, one of the best ornamental 
trees of the American forest; and in the eastern states it is more often used for the decoration of parks 
and streets than any other American Ash.° 
1 Johnson, Man. Med. Bot. N. Am. 231.— U. S. Dispens. ed. 16, 
1789. 
2 Millspaugh, Am. Med. Pl. in Homeopathic Remedies, ii. 137, t. 
137. 
8 Frazinus foliolis integerrimis, 122.— Royen, Fl. Leyd. Prodr. 
533 (excl. syn. Catesby). 
4 Hort. Kew. iii. 445. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 1232, f. 1055, t. 
5 Experiments in forest-planting have been made in recent years 
with the White Ash on the western prairies where, however, it 
appears less able to resist the effects of drought and to grow less 
rapidly than the Green Ash. In the elevated regions of central 
Europe it is more promising as a timber-tree ; and, as it begins to 
grow there fully two weeks later in the season than the European 
Frazinus excelsior, it generally escapes the effects of late spring 
frosts, which often destroy the tender shoots of that tree. (See R. 
Hartig, Ausl. Holz. Bayer. Staatswald. 39 [Forst.-nat. Zeit. 1892].) 
