1084 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



A FINK WHITE ASH 



This tree is in South Park, Rochester, N. Y. The white ash usually reaches a height of 

 seventy to eighty feet and in the open the crown is decidedly round topped and extends 

 almost to the grouiid. In the forest the trees are usually tall and massive, clear from 

 branches for a considerable distance from the ground, and with a narrow, somewhat pyra- 

 midal crown. 



a commodity in the English market at an early date, and 

 prior to 1789 had gained such firm hold that it had 

 largely supplanted the ash from the Bal- 

 tic Provinces. It was made into oars, as 

 had been done in Portugal, and as is now 

 done in the United States. The English 

 employed it also for capstans, levers, 

 bars, blocks, handsjMkes and ])ins. 



Long before the Revolution the farm- 

 ers of Susquehanna County, Pennsyl- 

 vania, fenced their land with rails split 

 from the unusually fine ash trees there. 

 It is probable that the custom of puttjng 

 ash to such use was general at that time, 

 though the fact is not often mentioned 

 in pioneer accounts. Ash splits well, and 

 is an ideal rail timber in all things except 

 that it has jxior lasting qualities. Rails 

 decayed in a few years. 



It is recorded in the travels of John 

 Lamson, early in the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, that ash bark was good food for 

 beavers. That seems a matter of trifling 

 moment at the present day, but it pos- 

 sessed some importance at a time when 



the skins of beavers constituted a con- 

 siderable article of commerce. 



Ash was one of the woods of which 

 flax brakes were made when home- 

 manufactured linen was a valuable 

 article. Saddle trees and stirrups were 

 among indispensable commodities in the 

 making of which the wood was useful. 

 Long-drawn splits bottomed rude chairs. 

 It is said that the term "cane ash" dates 

 from that custom. The splits were nar- 

 row, thin ribbons of ash, stripped from 

 billets, and they were woven into chair 

 bottoms and backs. They resembled the 

 ribbons of cane or rattan commonly em- 

 ployed in chair work. The term "cane 

 ash" is yet heard in some parts of the 

 south, but is generally applied to extra 

 fine timber without reference to the use 

 that may be made of it. 



Three long bows procured very early 

 on the coast of Virginia by explorers, 

 and now in the Ashmolean Museum, Ox- 

 ford, England, are said to be ash. They 

 show the use which the Indians made of 

 this wood when they had the whole 

 forest to choose from. The three bows 

 at Oxford are highly polished and are 

 nearly as black as ebony. The Indians 

 probably strained or painted the wood. 



White men made bows of ash in Vir- 

 ginia and elsewhere in the East, but not 

 the kind used in archery. Such bows 

 formed part of the equipment of heavy 

 freight wagons. They arched six or seven feet above the 

 bottoms of the wagon bed and the waterproof cover oi 



A WHITE ASH STAND 



This is a typical and almost pure growth of white ash at Mount Cilead, Ohio. On the left side 

 the trees are too near together for proper growth and the poorer ones should be cut out. 



