THE ASHES 205 



work. The saplings are oftenest chosen for hop and bean 

 poles. 



As a lawn tree, the black ash has little to recommend it 

 for it often dies of thirst in the loam of a garden. At best 

 it is short-lived. Planted in swampy ground, the tree 

 spreads by seeds, and suckers from the roots, soon forming 

 extensive thickets, and drinking up the moisture at a mar- 

 velous rate. 



The Red Ash 



F. Pennsylvanica, Marsh. 



The red ash follows the courses of streams and lake mar- 

 gins from New Brunswick to the Black Hills and south into 

 Florida, Alabama, and Nebraska. This tree is much 

 planted for shade and ornament in New England, and in 

 other Eastern sections. The tree is small, spreading into 

 a compact though irregular head of twiggy, slender 

 branches. The yellow-green foliage, a foot long, of seven 

 to nine short, stalked, lustrous leaflets, is lightened by a 

 pale pubescence on petioles and leaf-linings. The same 

 velvety down covers the new shoots. Summer and winter 

 this sign never fails. 



Red ash seeds are extremely long and slender, and have 

 the most graceful outlines of all the darts that various ash 

 trees bear. The heavy, round body has a wing twice its 

 length by which the wand carries the seeds far away. Very 

 gradually an ash tree launches its seeds. It is easy to 

 understand why the family is so scattered through any 

 woods, for the wind i^ the sower. The reddish bark of the 

 twigs and trunk of this tree seems to be the justification for 

 its name. Its brown wood is inferior to white ash. 



