FRA 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



FRA 



579 



tough, and of excellent use to the coach-uiaker, wheel- 

 wright, and cartwright, for ploughs, axle-trees, fellies, har- 

 rows, and many other implements of husbandry ; for ladders, 

 oars, blocks for pullies, &c. It is excellent for tenons and 

 mortises, and is in great request among coopers, turners, and 

 thatchers ; no wood equals it for palisade hedges, hop-yards, 

 poles, and spars, handles and stocks for tools, spade-trees, 

 &c. When it happens to be curiously veined, the cabinet- 

 makers use it, and call it green ebony. From a remark in 

 Harrison's Description- of England, prefixed to Hollingshead, 

 it is plain that the Ash was then esteemed the properest tree 

 for hop-poles. Poles are accounted to be their greatest 

 charge. The Ash makes very sweet fuel, with liltle smoke, 

 but is apt to crack and fly in burning. Ash pollards are of 

 great service where fuel is scarce ; a few of them will produce 

 many loads of lop. The loppings make the most agreeable 

 of all fires, and will burn well either green or dry. It should 

 nevertheless be borne in mind, that if the branches be suf- 

 fered to grow too large, the lopping wiil proportionably injure 

 the tree. The Ash has no equal for drying herrings. The 

 ashes of the wood afford very good Potash ; and the bark is 

 good for the tanning of nets, arid of calf-skins ; a slight infu- 

 sion of it appears of a pale yellowish colour, when viewed 

 against the light, but when looked down upon, or placed 

 between the eye and an opaque object, it is blue. This blue- 

 ness is destroyed by the addition of an acid; and alkalies 

 recover it again. It will give a good, though not a beautiful, 

 green to cloths which have been blued. In the north of Lan- 

 cashire, they lop the Ash to feed the cattle in autumn, when 

 the grass is upon the decline, the cattle peeling off" the bark. 

 In Queen Elizabeth's time, the inhabitants of Colton and 

 Hawkshead fells, remonstrated against the number of forges 

 in the country, because they consumed all the loppings and 

 croppings, which were the sole winter food for their cattle. 

 In forests, the keepers browse the deer on summer evenings 

 with the spray of Ash, that they may not stray too far from 

 their walk. The leaves have been gathered to mix with tea ; 

 and poor people in some places have made a considerable 

 advantage by collecting them for this purpose. Withering 

 prescribes an infusion of the leaves made pretty strong, and 

 taken to the quantity of an ounce and a half, as a good purge, 

 and says that a decoction of two drachms of the bark, or six 

 drachms of the leaves, has been used to cure agues. Vander 

 Mye informs us, that the distilled water of the bark has been 

 given in pestilential diseases with success. A decoction of 

 the bark is very serviceable in the jaundice, dropsy, and 

 other complaints of the liver and other viscera. It has like- 

 wise the credit of being singularly useful in the gravel and 

 stone, and not without some degree of probability. A strong 

 lye made from the ashes of the wood is an excellent lotion 

 for scabby heads. If cows eat of the leaves or shoots, the 

 butter made from their milk will be rank; which is always to 

 be remarked in the butter made about Guildford and Godalm- 

 ing, and in some other parts of Surry, whera there are Ash- 

 trees growing about all their pastures ; whereas in good 

 dairy countries they never suffer an Ash-tree to grow. The 

 truth of this is, however, disputed, and certain it is, that 

 there is no taste in Ash-leaves to countenance the assertion ; 

 and it is said, on the contrary, that this is the next tree after 

 the Elm, which the Romans recommended for fodder. Cream 

 is apt to turn bitter at the fall of the leaf, and the rea- 

 son is generally thought to be, that the cattle then pick 

 up the decayed leaves, particularly the Ash ; but the case is 

 the same in the great low pastures, which are open and with- 

 out trees, as in upland inclosures, which abound in them. 

 The only way to avoid the ill taste in butter at that season, is 



to churn oftener, and to use the butter whilst it is new. The 

 Germans and Dutch call the Ash esc/ie or asche ; the Danes 

 and Swedes, aske ; the French, lefrene ; the Italians, frassino ; 

 the Spaniards, fresno; the Portuguese, freixo; in Russia, jas, 

 jasen,jassen, which name prevails in the dialects of the Scla- 

 vonian ; the English is from the Saxon aasc. Ray says, it 

 derives its name from the colour of the bark. We must be 

 careful, however, not to confound, as some have done, this 

 tree with the Mountain Ash, which is totally different from it. 

 This has the epithet excelsior, from the loftiness of the trunk ; 

 that of mountain, from the loftiness of the situation which it 

 delights in. The varieties of this species are: 1. That with 

 simple leaves, which, however, sometimes has them lobed 

 and even ttrnate. 2. With pendulous branches, called the 

 Weeping Ash. An uncommonly fine tree of this sort has been 

 growing nearly forty years at Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire; 

 and it is not uncommon in trees of considerable age, espe- 

 cially when growing by the water-side, to see the branches 

 hang down. This variety is now become common in the 

 nurseries, but they are engrafted, and carry too much the 

 appearance of art; imitations are seldom successful, and 

 none of ihe weeping Ash-trees will ever vie with the Baby- 

 lonian Willow. 3. With variegated leaves, both yellow and 

 white, or gold-striped and silver-striped, as the nursery-men 

 call them. Micheli mentions some other varieties, but none 

 of sufficient consequence to be enumerated here. It is plea- 

 sant to observe, that amidst the deplorable destruction of 

 valuable timber, the planting of this so extremely useful tree 

 has lately not been neglected : twenty acres have been planted 

 by William Wollaston, Esqr. at Great Finborough, Suffolk ; 

 thirty-five by Thomas White, Esqr. at Butsfield, Lanchester, 

 Durham ; sixteen acres by Mr. David Kay, at Frindsbury, 

 Kent ; 63,000 trees have been planted by Edward Loveden, 

 Esqr. at Buscot, near Farringdon, Berks; 6(500 by John 

 Sneyd, Esqr. at Belmont, Staffordshire, between 1784 and 

 1786; 2000 by Dr. Richard Watson, bishop of Landaff, 

 near Ambleside in Westmorland, in 1788; 42,000 by George 

 Ross, Esqr. Cromarty ; and 57,500 by the Earl of Fife, in the 

 county of Murray. The facility with which the Ash is pro- 

 pagated, and adapts itself to any soil or situation, even the 

 worst, the quickness of its growth, and the general demand 

 for timber in every part of the country, for a variety of rural 

 and economical purposes, recommend this tree very much to 

 the planter. As a further encouragement, Mr. Boutcher has 

 given an instance of the great profit of an Ash plantation, in 

 a small experiment, which he thus relates : On half a rood of 

 heavy meadow, chiefly barren red clay and moss, he planted 

 Ash-trees six years old, and eight feet high, in rows four feet 

 asunder, and two feet distance in the row ; after four years 

 he cut them down, within five or six inches of the ground ; 

 having more than he wanted, in seven years he sold half for 

 pollards and hoops, for 40s. In six years he cut them again, 

 and sold them for 50s; and at the end of six years more, at 

 the same price. There remained then twenty trees intended 

 to stand for timber, but he was obliged to sell them at 

 twenty-three years' growth for 7s. a tree. Thus would an 

 acre of indifferent ground, properly situated for sale, yield in 

 twenty-three years 115. 10s. without any other expense 

 than digging the ground, for the first five or six years, and 

 cutting the coppice. Care should be taken to cut them slant- 

 ing with a sharp instrument, leaving all the wounds smooth 

 and clean. Observe, no price is mentioned for the first cut- 

 ting, which he used himself; and that he found he should 

 have had at least one-third more for the price of the last 

 cutting ; he also found that he had planted too thick, and 

 that he should have had more wood if the rows had been 



