The Ashes and the Fringe Tree 



Asia Minor, yields the manna of commerce, a medicinal wax 

 which exudes from the leaves and trunk. Chinese white wax 

 comes from a species in eastern Asia. 



The European Ash (F. excelsior) is a large timber tree, native 

 also to western Asia, Evelyn ranked its wood next to oak in 

 universal usefulness. Scholars wrote on its inner bark before 

 paper was invented. Lances and spears, shields, pikes and bows 

 of it armed the soldier in days of old. Implements of all sorts 

 were made of ash from the infancy of agriculture and mechanics. 

 "The husbandman's tree," it was called, for "ploughs, axle- 

 trees, wheel-rings, harrows, balls; . . . oars, blocks for 

 pulleys, tenons and mortises, poles, spars, handles and stocks 

 for tools, spade trees, carts, ladders. ... In short so good 

 and profitable is this tree that every prudent Lord of a Manor 

 should employ one acre of ground with Ash to every twenty 

 acres of other land, since in as many years it would be more worth 

 than the land itself." 



William Cobbett gives the ash a good character. He com- 

 mends the keys for fattening hogs. "The seeds of ash are very 

 full of oil, and a pig that is put to his shifts will pick the seeds 

 very nicely out from the husks." He says further: "The ash 

 will grow anywhere." "It is the hardiest of our large trees." 

 "On the coasts the trees all, even the firs, lean from the sea 

 breeze, except the ash. It stands upright, as if in a warm, wooded 

 dell. We have no tree that attains greater height or bears prun- 

 ing better, none that equals the ash in beauty of leaf or usefulness 

 of timber. It is ready for the wheelwright at twenty years or 

 less." 



Young ash saplings are cut when only five or six years old 

 and used in making crates for chinaware. When steamed the 

 wood may be bent to any shape, which makes it valuable for 

 hoops. An ash tree 3 inches in diameter is as valuable for spade 

 and fork handles as it will ever be. Walking sticks and whip 

 handles use up still smaller stuff, the very tough second growth, 

 or "stooled" shoots. 



The ash is a tree of great reputation in Europe, aside from 

 its lumber value. It is the World Tree — Igdrasil — of the Norse 

 mythology, out of which sprung the race of men. It dominated 

 the whole universe. Did not its roots penetrating the earth 

 reach even to the cold and darkness of the Under World? Its 



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