68 THE BEECH. 



shallings of nature ! If to one tree be given good 

 fruit, another excels in foliage ; if one be tall and 

 soaring, another gives sweet amplitude of shade, 

 touching the earth with the tips of its long arms. 

 Like the cities of a great empire, every one is noted 

 for a merit and a suite of qualities peculiarly its own; 

 and for absolute similarity we seek in vain. 



Economically considered, the beech is noted for 

 supplying wood which, when green, is harder than 

 that of any other British timber-tree. When the 

 tree has grown in good soil, and upon plains, it has 

 a reddish tinge ; but that from individuals grown in 

 poor soils, and upon mountains, is whitish. Dried, 

 it is close-grained and brittle. In England, at the 

 present time, beech- wood is chiefly used for making 

 bedsteads and chairs ; it is in demand also for 

 panels of carriages, and for various minor purposes 

 in cabinet-making, turnery, etc. Yery much of the 

 common stained furniture used in modern dwellings 

 is from the same source. Beech of small size, or of 

 short and crooked stem, is the least valuable of all 

 timber. Whenever a straight and clean trunk is 

 wanted, such as alone is meritorious in the eyes of 

 the timber merchant, the tree requires to be drawn 

 up by others of its own species, many individuals 

 being planted in a clump, or by some other of nearly 

 equal rate of growth, such as the sweet or Spanish 

 chestnut. It succeeds best when composing planta- 

 tions unmixed with anything else. For hedgerows 



