310 HOW TO GKOW GOOD TIMBER. 



it is a highly useful wood, much employed in car- 

 pentry, cabinet-work, and turnery ; in the making of 

 charcoal ; and increasingly so in the manufacture of 

 wood-spirit. 



As a firewood it excels most others, as it burns 

 with a clear flame, even when wet, and leaves behind 

 only a small quantity of ash. How, indeed, could it 

 possess much ash when it flourishes in positions 

 where scarcely four inches of soil covers up the 

 oolitic stone, its roots spreading over the rock and 

 occasionally dipping into its fissures in a manner 

 most aptly illustrative of the fact that this tree really 

 derives but little nutrition from the soil, the rocks 

 upon which it grows, for the most part, serving to 

 moor the giant in position that it may spread forth 

 its leaves to feed upon the atmosphere ? 



The beech is easily propagated from its fruit — 

 "mast" — which, indeed, so readily grows beneath 

 the trees that thousands might be obtained for the 

 purpose of pricking out in nursery lines, if looked 

 after. The usual method of cultivation is to gather 

 the mast in the autumn, to keep it well in sand, and 

 sow in the spring. After two years it is pricked out 

 in nursery rows, and is fit for planting in three years 

 more. 



Where once established it will soon spread, as the 

 mast grows sporadically with great readiness, and 

 this tree has a faculty for extending undisputed 

 possession; thus, in America will be found wide- 

 extended forests of scarcely anything but beech, 

 which, though perhaps a little varied from our own, 

 is yet doubtless of the same species. 



There are several ornamental varieties of beech to 



