6 BULLETIN 299, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



For planing-mill products, furniture, and car construction old- 

 growth ash is usually preferred because a high degree of strength and 

 stiffness is not required or because large sizes or widths are necessary. 

 Black ash (called brown ash commercially) makes especially hand- 

 some interior finish. 



Second-growth ash of good quality will usually bring the best price 

 as handle, boat-oar, vehicle, or agricultural-implement stock rather 

 than as lumber. This excludes ash grown in swamps, which is too 

 fine-grained and soft. 



Old-growth ash of fair size and quality brings the best price if cut 

 into lumber and graded, the upper grades being sold for car construc- 

 tion, vehicle and automobile bodies and panels, and planing-mill 

 products, the lower grades for furniture, refrigerators, and possibly 

 the cull stuff for butter-tub heading. In exceptional cases high- 

 grade old-growth ash timber can best be sold for boat oars. 



Ash timber of poor quality for lumber can probably best be sold for 

 stave and heading bolts for butter tubs or used for firewood or char- 

 coal. It is also used in some parts of the country for fence posts and 

 bars where more suitable kinds of trees are lacking. 



Ash timber of old or second growth, suitably located, can often be 

 sold most advantageously for export logs. Five to seven million feet 

 of green ash logs are exported annually in addition to the several 

 million feet of ash exported in the form of deals and planks. 



GROUPS AND SPECIES OF AMERICAN ASH. 



The ashes in the United States may be divided into five groups, 

 containing in all 18 or more species, distinguished from each other 

 as shown in the key (Table 3 ) . 



Table 3. — Key to American ashes. 



Genus FRAXINUS. — Trees and shrubs with opposite, pinnately compound 

 leaves, and fruit a dry samara. Divisible into five groups: white, green, water, 

 black, and shrub groups, distinguished on the basis of flowers and fruit. 

 I. Flowers without petals, dioecious, polygamous, or perfect. 



A. Body of fruit terete or nearly so. Wings not extending to base of seed. 

 Bark fissured. Flowers dioecious. 

 1. White Ash Group.. Wings of samara terminal or nearly so. 



a. Twigs glabrous. 



(1) F. americana — seed with wing, 1 to 2 inches long. 



(2) F. texensis — seed with wing, less than inch long. 



Hardly more than a form of F. americana. 



b. Twigs and lower surface of leaflets pubescent. 



(3) F. biltmoreana. 



