114 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



As the ash grows strongly, and the roots, which extend to 

 a great distance, ramify near the surface, it exhausts the soil 

 underneath and around it to an astonishing degree. For this 

 reason, the grass is generally seen in a very meagre and starved 

 condition in a lawn where the ash tree abounds. Here and 

 there a single tree of the ash will have an excellent effect, 

 seen from the windows of the house ; but we would chiefly 

 employ it for the grand masses, and to intermingle with other 

 large groups of trees in an extensive plantation. When the 

 ash is young, it forms a well-rounded head ; but when older, 

 the lower branches bend towards the ground, and then slightly 

 turn up in a very graceful manner. We take pleasure in 

 quoting what that great lover, and accurate delineator of for- 

 est beauties, Mr. Gilpin, says of the ash. "The ash gener- 

 ally carries its principal stem higher than the oak, and rises 

 in an easy flowing line. But its chief beauty consists in the 

 lightness of its whole appearance. Its branches at first keep 

 close to the trunk, and form acute angles with it ; but as 

 they begin to lengthen, they generally take an easy sweep, 

 and the looseness of the leaves corresponding with the light- 

 ness of the spray, the whole forms an elegant, depending 

 foliaofe. Nothingf can have a better effect than an old 

 ash hanging from the corner of a wood, and bringing off 

 the heaviness of the other foliage with its loose pendant 

 branches." — (Fore,s^ Scenery, p. 82.) 



The highest and most characteristic beauty of the Ameri- 

 can White ash, (and we consider it the finest of all the species,) 

 is the colouring which its leaves put on in autumn. Gilpin 

 complains that the leaf of the European ash "decays in a 

 dark, muddy, unpleasing tint." Not so the White ash. In an 

 American wood, such as often lines and overhangs the banks 

 of the Hudson, the Connecticut, and many of our noble north- 



