F AG 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



FAG 



553 



London billot, for the use of the bakers, glasshouses, &c. 

 The stackwood, which is made up of he branches, is burnt 

 chiefly into charcoal ; the nuts or mast, as they are commonly 

 called, fatten swine, but the fat is not firm; and they are 

 greedily devoured by mice, squirrels, and birds : they are 

 said to occasion giddiness and headache, but, when dried 

 and powdered, to make wholesome bread ; they are some- 

 times roasted us a substitute for coffee ; and the poor people 

 in Silesia use the expressed oil instead of butter. At the 

 beginning of the last century, Aaron Hill had a project for 

 paying off the national debt with the oil of Beech-nut; but 

 they seem to yield so little oil in northern countries, that 

 Linneus informs us, that scarcely any oil can be expressed 

 from them. If the soil be tolerably good, Beech will become 

 tit to be felled in twenty-five years; the woods are then 

 drawn, as it is called, that is, the trees fit for firewood or 

 billet, poles, timber, &c. are taken down, and no crooked 

 trees are suffered to remain. Formerly it was the custom to 

 leave the old stools to produce new trees, but as these sel- 

 dom grow well and handsome, now during the winter the old 

 stools are grubbed up, and the plants which spring spon- 

 taneously from the mast are encouraged, to supply the places 

 of the trees which are taken down. Once in six or seven 

 years this operation of drawing the woods may be repeated ; 

 and thus there is a constant and regular succession of trees 

 fit to cut. The price which firewood or billet fetches in 

 Buckinghamshire, is nearly fourpence the foot solid measure ; 

 the poles and better stuff, for gun-stocks, wedges, &c. sell 

 for fivepence the foot ; and the largest trees, for millwrights, 

 sell for sixpence or sevenpence ; stackwood is fifteen or six- 

 teen shillings per load, and faggots fifteen or sixteen shillings 

 the hundred. Csesar's assertion, that the Fagus was not in 

 Britain when he visited the island, can hardly be controvert- 

 ed but by supposing that his Fagus is not the Beech. Bui 

 whatever may have been the case in Ccesar's time, the Beech is 

 now no uncommon tree in many considerable tracts of Great 

 Britain, particularly on that large ridge of chalk-hills which 

 runs from Dorsetshire, through Wiltshire, Hampshire, Surry, 

 Sussex, and Kent, branching out into Berkshire, Bucking- 

 hamshire, and Hertfordshire ; on the declivities of the Cots- 

 wold and Strondwater hills in Gloucestershire, and on the 

 bleak banks of the Wye, in the counties of Hereford and 

 Monmouth ; and it is, in short, to be found in almost every 

 county of England. Some plantations of it have been lately 

 made by the Earl of Fife, in the county of Murray, where 

 his lordship has planted nearly two hundred thousand of 

 these trees. George Ross, Esq. has also set 13,000 of them 

 in Cromarty. In England, John Sneyd, Esq. has planted 

 above 14,000 at Belmont in Staffordshire, between the years 

 1784 and 1786; and in 1783, the Bishop of Llandaff planted 

 2000 at Ambleside. The Beech is a native of the greater 

 part of Europe, and the southern provinces of the vast 

 Russian Empire; but it is not fond of very high and cold 

 situations, being seldom found in the northern provinces of 

 Sweden. Mr. Lightfoot doubts whether it be indigenous in 

 Scotland; and Mr. Marshall thinks it not a native of the 

 northern counties of England. It prospers in a chalky and 

 rocky soil, but not in light sands, and thrives prodigiously in 

 sheltered bottoms, but seldom flourishes in a western expo- 

 sure. In some parts of Herefordshire, where the soil is a 

 strong clay full of flints, this tree grows to a great size, and 

 is extremely beautiful. Beech, says the late Mr. White, is 

 one of the most grand and lovely of all the forest-trees, 

 whether we consider its stately trunk, its smooth silvery rind, 

 its glossy foliage, or graceful spreading pendulous boughs. 

 No tree, says another writer, is more beautiful, when stand- 

 VOL. i. 47. 



ing singly in parks or ornamental grounds, as it throws out its 

 branches very regularly, and feathers almost to the ground : 

 in woods or groves it grows clear of branches to a great 

 height. Mr. Gilpin is not inclined to rank the Beech much 

 higher in picturesque beauty than utility. Its trunk, he 

 allows, is often highly picturesque, being studded with bold 

 knobs and projections, and having sometimes a sort of irre- 

 gular fluting, which is very characteristic ; the bark too wears 

 often a pleasant hue ; it is naturally of a dingy olive, but is 

 overspread, in patches, with a variety of mosses and lichens ; 

 its smoothness also contrasts agreeably with these rougher 

 appendages. This is all the merit Mr. Gilpin allots to the 

 Beech ; for, says he, we rarely see it well ramified, and in 

 full leaf it has the appearance of an overgrown bush. Virgil, 

 indeed, was right in choosing it for his shade, for no tree 

 forms so complete a roof, although its bushiness gives it a 

 great heaviness. The Beech, therefore, is most pleasing in 

 its young state ; it is then light and hairy, with spiry branches 

 often hanging in the most easy and beautiful forms ; and some 

 of the finest oppositions of tint arise in the autumn from the 

 union of this tree with the Oak. Although this tree is sup- 

 posed not to be a native of Ireland, several fine Beeches are 

 mentioned in that country ; as at Tiny-park, the seat of Sir 

 Skeffington Smyth, three noble trees together, the smallest 

 fourteen feet round ; the next, fifteen feet six inches at the 

 butt, and fourteen feet eight inches at seven feet from the 

 ground ; the third, is sixteen feet three inches round, and 

 continues nearly of the same girth for thirty-six feet. The 

 celebrated Arthur Young, in his "Travels in France," speaks 

 of a Beech at Chantilly, as the finest he ever saw, straight as 

 an arrow, and not less than eighty or ninety feet high, forty 

 feet to the first branch, and four yards in diameter at five 

 feet from the ground. The Beech derives its Latin name 

 Fagus, from a Greek word which signifies to eat, either be- 

 cause mankind lived on Beech-mast before the use of corn, 

 or because it was the food of the common people : the appel- 

 lation is the same in all the northern languages, and in all 

 the dialects of the Sclavonian : in German Buche, Buke, or 

 Bofte; in Danish, Boy; in Swedish, Bok ; in Russian and 

 Polish, Buk; the French H(tre, is from the German Hester, 

 which signifies a young Beech ; the Italians call it Faggio, 

 from the Latin, which the Portuguese have softened into 

 Faya, and the Spaniards into Haya, although they sometimes 

 calls it Fagos. There are some planters who suppose that 

 there are two species of this tree, the Mountain Beech and 

 the Wild Beech ; the first of which has a whiter wood than 

 the second ; but this difference arises only from the soil. 

 There are also seeds of a Beech brought from North America, 

 by the name of Broad-leaved Beech; but the plants raised 

 from them proved to be the common sort. There are two 

 varieties in the nurseries, one with yellow, and the other with 

 white stripes. In Germany they have another variety, with 

 dark red leaves, which is called the Purple Beech. There are 

 also some trees in our woods with rougher bark, which the 



woodmen call Hay Beech. The Beech-tree is propagated 



by sowing the mast, the season for which is any time from 

 October to February, only observing to secure the seeds 

 from vermin when early sowed ; if this be carefully done, the 

 sooner they are sown the better. Since Beech-mast, how- 

 ever, keeps very well, and is greatly relished by field mice 

 and other vermin, many planters prefer spring sowing; in 

 which case the seeds should be spread on a mat in an airy 

 place for a few days to dry, and then put up in bags. A 

 small spot of ground will be sufficient for raising a great 

 number of these trees from seed : they must be kept clean 

 from weeds, and if they come up very thick, draw the strongest 

 7 B 



