THE OTHER HARDWOODS 153 
Even in the rough log well-grown ash can com- 
mand about 2s. a cubic foot, and often consider- 
ably more; while the coach-building, agricultural 
implement, and furniture trades would be glad 
to have far larger supplies of it than are at pre- 
sent obtainable in Britain, because British ash is 
of better quality than that imported from abroad. 
No timber grown in our woods can compare with 
it in toughness and elasticity, and its value as 
a timber tree is increased by the rapidity of its 
growth, for timber of the finest quality can be 
obtained at about sixty years of age. Even the 
small produce of coppice and underwoods is valu- 
able for hop-poles, crates, and the like, while in 
some places as much as £15 an acre is, I have 
been recently informed, obtained for ash-shoots 
cut for walking-sticks and umbrella-handles. ‘I 
have been credibly inform’d that one person hath 
planted so much of this one sort of Timéer in his 
life time as hath been valu’d worth fifty thousand 
pounds to be bought. These are pretty encourage- 
ments for a small and pleasant industry.’ Thus 
wrote Evelyn nearly 250 years ago; and what was 
then worth £50,000, would now be worth some- 
thing between five and ten times that amount 
