60 HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



the beech called " Handsome May," or " Fairy-tree," 

 formerly haunted, as old people said, by the fairies ; but 

 she employed herself there in making nosegays for the 

 holy Virgin of Douremy : she had seen angels and the 

 two saints above-mentioned, not exactly at the Fairy-tree, 

 but at the fountain near it. (See her Trial in the " EJC- 

 traits et Notices des MSS." Tome 3. p. 5S.) 



The timber of these trees, in point of actual utility, 

 follows next to the oak and the ash, and is little inferior 

 to the elm for water-pipes. Between the years 1790 and 

 1800, when John Aldredge, Esq. of New Lodge, St. 

 Leonard's Forest, was causing fish-ponds to be dug in 

 that neighbourhood, the workmen found scantlings of 

 beech timber, and trunks of these trees, squared out, 

 which were supposed to have been buried in the earth 

 since the time of the Romans, as there is no record men- 

 tioning that part of the forest having been cleared, or of 

 ponds made there since. Beech-timber is subject to worms 

 when exposed to the air without paint. It is used by 

 wheelwrights and chairmakers, and also by turners for 

 making domestic wooden ware, such as bowls, shovels, 

 &c. Bedsteads and other furniture are often made with 

 this timber ; and no wood splits so fine, or holds so well 

 together, as beech, so that boxes, sword-sheaths, and a 

 variety of other things, are made from it. When the 

 art of splitting this wood was first known in England, 

 the parties who used it kept the method a profound secret 

 for many years. 



The inhabitants of London are indebted to this tree 

 for the baskets called pottles, in which they are so well 

 supplied with strawberries. 



" No wars did men molest, 



When only beechen bowls were in request." 



Tibullus. 





