144 FRAXINUS. 



Probably, however, the Ash was the first of trees which care was 

 taken to plant and multiply, for no other was so useful, in primitive 

 agriculture, in the construction of the necessary implements ; nor 

 could any other afford a wood so excellent as fuel : 



" Ash, when green. 

 Is fire for a queen." 



Hence it is, that we find the oldest Ashes hard-by the seats of ancient 

 " Houses "; by ruins of bastiles and castles ; and they are often the 

 sole memorial left to tell the tale of homesteads that have stood in 

 what are now out-of-the-way places. And when properties got each 

 its boundary, and the area began to be divided into fields, the Ash 

 was planted in every hedge ; and there is a statutory enactment 

 enjoining future landlords to plant a number of Ash trees around 

 each onstead, according to the size of the farm. The result is, that 

 the Ash is much more common in hedge-rows to this day than any 

 other tree ; and in the long lines formed by them, there is not one 

 that is possessed of any dignity or beauty. It is otherwise when 

 growing alone — whether in the lavra, or on the heaving mound of the 

 moated castle, or on the primrose bank in the dean, where its 

 " umbrageous arms " almost touch the burn that washes its bared 

 sinewy contorted roots. In these sites, when old, it is a noble tree ; 

 nor is it deformed by the fungous growths that infest its trunk. And 

 a young Ash is beautiful in the dean when it rises up, clean and 

 erect, from amidst the sloes and brushwood that tangle the brae, and 

 before age has spread its branches or curved their extremities. 

 Burns has taken such a tree to confer a compliment : 



" She 's stately like yon youthful Ash, 



That grows the Cowslip braes between. 

 And shoots its head above each bush." — " Chessnock Banks." 



Amongst the remarkable trees in Scotland, Dr. Walker mentions 

 "an Ash at Mellerstain House in Berwickshire. It stands in a plan- 

 tation, by the side of the east avenue to the house. It is a vigorous 

 thriving tree, near 80 feet high, and was about 80 years old in 

 September 1795, when it measured 8 ft. 1 in." Essays, p. 10. This 

 tree was blown down many years ago, and its stump is now covered 

 with Ivy. Dr. F. Douglas. Perhaps the finest Ashes ia Berwickshire 

 are those at Button Hall*. There are some scarcely inferior about 



* Hutton-hall — one of the most picturesque seats on the Whiteadder, 

 fast hastening to decay. In celebrating one of Johnnie Armstrong's rides, 

 the bard goes on to tell — 



" Then they 're come on to Hutton-ha, 

 They rade that proper place about ; 

 But the laird he was the wiser man, 

 For he had left na geir without." 



Pennant's Tour, ii. ]). 2/6. 



Unfortunately the canny prudence of this Laird was not included in the 



