WHITE ASH 269 



trees, and sometimes where even White Pine and Hemlock 

 were to be seen. It prefers a rich, moist soil, but not ex- 

 cessively moist, yet it will grow in almost any that is neither 

 very dry nor very wet. 



It is a light-demanding tree, and when grown in the open, 

 branches out low down and forms a symmetrical round 

 crown, with limbs largely destitute of leaves except at or 

 near their extremities ; but when crowded from early life, 

 it shoots upward, dropping all its lower limbs, and forms 

 a tall stem which, when it reaches its vantage-point, breaks 

 out into a round, open crown, with a few specialized 

 branches. The stem sometimes shows slight bends from one 

 side to the other, but soon coming back to the perpendicu- 

 lar, unless interfered with in some way. An examination 

 of the terminal bud will show how this may happen. There 

 are three winter buds formed on the leader, and if injury 

 comes to the central one, then one or the other, and some- 

 times both, of the side buds will start forth to become the 

 leader. In case both become leaders, then there will be a 

 forked tree, but if only one attains that preeminence, then 

 a bend will occur, and the new leader will assume an up- 

 right direction. It is seldom that any serious injury comes 

 to the lumber cut from such a tree in consequence of this 

 peculiarity. 



It is a rapid grower for the first fifty to seventy-five or 

 even eighty years of its life, varying, of course, from sup- 

 ply or lack of fertility, moisture, and depth of soil. During 

 the first half of the last century several White Ash trees 

 were set out on the Pennsylvania State Capitol grounds at 

 Harrisburg, and when two of them were recently cut down 

 to make room for the new building, they disclosed sixty- 

 five annual rings in the stumps two feet above the ground, 

 and were, respectively, twenty-two and twenty-two and one 

 half inches in diameter inside the bark. The wood in these 

 trees was remarkably strong and elastic. When not gen- 

 erously given light, it grows less rapidly and the lumber is 

 inferior in strength and elasticity. 



