PROFITABLE TIMBER TREES 73 



year of its age, nor after it has begun to deteriorate at 

 the heart. On the best soils ash may remain sound and 

 white at the heart to an advanced age, one hundred years 

 or more in some cases, and so long as the trees are making 

 a good growth they may not suffer by being left. But on 

 dry chalk or gravelly ground, or on wet peat or clay, they 

 get black-hearted at a comparatively early age even before 

 the fiftieth year on inferior soils. When this happens, 

 nothing is gained by leaving them standing, for they will 

 fetch as much as 6d. to Is. more per foot while the wood 

 is still white, than when discoloured by premature decay. 

 If ash can be cut at that critical period when it is just on 

 the point of deteriorating at the heart, it will give the 

 owner the greatest possible return, both in cubic contents 

 and price per foot. To know when to cut to secure this 

 in the case of every tree is impossible, but observation will 

 generally enable the most suitable felling age to be fixed 

 within certain limits. In coppice woods many ash standards 

 are allowed to grow up from stool shoots, and these always 

 become ripe earlier than trees on their own roots, and must 

 be cut accordingly. For trees on their own roots or maidens, 

 an average age of seventy years is usually the most 

 profitable, provided they make a fair growth up to that 

 age and are not injured or deformed. On peaty ground 

 ash rarely keeps sound beyond fifty years of age, and the 

 quality is not so good as on firmer ground, although, when 

 the latter lies at no great depth below the peat, it is often 

 better. Dry shallow soils are not suitable for ash, and it 

 should never be planted on them, although it will often 

 come up on such ground spontaneously. But its growth is 

 invariably slow, and after a few years it usually gets 

 cankered and deformed. 



As in the case of oak, ash has the disadvantage (from 

 an economic point of view) of requiring the best class of 

 ground. But it will flourish more frequently than oak on 

 land which, as already said, cannot be always utilised for 

 high farming. Plenty of first - class ash ground will not 

 return a nett rent of more than 7s. 6d. to 10s. per acre, 

 and some even less. Such land is far more profitable 

 planted with ash, which, unlike the oak, is one of the 



