390 FRAXINUS EXCELSIOK. 
Propagation and Culture. The species is always propagated by seeds, and the 
varieties by grafting or budding on the species. The seeds should be gathered 
as soon as they are ripe, and taken to the rotting-ground, where they should be 
mixed with light, sandy earth, and laid in a flat heap, not more than ten inches 
thick, in order to prevent them from heating. Here they should be turned over 
several times in the course of the winter ; and, as early as the ground will per- 
mit, in the spring, they may be removed, freed from the sand by sifting, and 
sown in beds in a middling soil. The richness or quality of the soil, Sang 
observes, is of little consequence; but it should be well broken by the rake, and 
the situation should be open, to prevent the plants from being drawn up too slen- 
der. The seeds may be deposited at the distance of half an inch every way, and 
covered about a quarter of an inch deep with soil. The plants may be taken up 
at the end of the first season, and planted in nursery lines; and at the end of the 
second year, they may be removed to where they are finally to remain. If 
planted in a good soil, they will grow rapidly when young, attaining a height of 
fifteen feet and upwards, in ten years. When cultivated as a coppice-wood, the ash 
will continue throwing up shoots from stools or pollards for more than a century. 
The most profitable age for felling its timber, appears to be from eighty to one 
hundred years. The drip of the ash is injurious to the vegetation of almost every 
other plant ; and, when planted in cultivated fields, from its numerous fibrous 
roots, which run close to the surface, a certain portion of the land around it is 
rendered unproductive. The use of the ash in plantations, therefore, has been 
objected to on this account; although, it is admitted that this, and its love of 
shelter, constitute a decided reason why it should not be planted in hedge-rows, 
or where it is expected to derive profit from plants growing under its shade, yet 
it affords no argument against planting it in masses, where the object is the pro- 
duction of timber or coppice- wood. As the tree, when standing singly, forms a 
most ornamental object on a lawn, and, though it may impede the growth of 
grass, yet does not destroy it, there is no reason why the ash should not be 
admitted into pleasure-grounds, as well as the cedar, or any other dense ever- 
green, under which grass will not thrive. It has been observed, that female and 
hermaphrodite trees, from the quantity of seeds which they produce, never exhibit 
such a handsome clothing of foliage as the male trees; and hence, in some situa- 
tions, where ornament is required, it may be desirable to make sure of a male by 
grafting. 
Accidents, Diseases, and Insects. When standing alone, the far-extended 
branches of the ash, are liable to be broken off by high winds ; but, except on 
unsuitable soils, it is not subject to the canker, or many other diseases. From 
, )o quick an ascent of the sap; or, as some imagine, from the puncture of an 
unknown insect in the tender twigs, which diverts the sap from its usual course, 
the branches of the ash sometimes become twisted and curled into a beautiful 
faciated form, resembling a ram's horn, or a crosier. These wreathed excres- 
cences or facia are sometimes also found in other trees, as the 
willow, and particularly in the holly. As the ash comes late 
into leaf, it is by no means so liable to the attacks of insects as 
fie various species of orchard fruits, which put forth early; at 
least, this is the case in Britain; but, in France, its leaves are 
liable to be destroyed by the Cantharis vesicatoria, denoted by / 
the adjoining figure; and also by bees, ants, and birds, in the / f | 
middle of summer. "If nature had produced the ash for no 
other purpose than for the embellishment of forests," says a 
writer in the " Nouveau Du Hamel," "we might almost say 
that she had failed in her end, or had opposed herself to her own 
destining the leaves of that tree to be the food of an insect, Cantharis 
