THE ASH. 



149 



but for the toughness and elasticity of its wood, 

 in wliich latter quality it surpasses every Euro- 

 pean tree. In its younger stages (when it is called 

 ground-ash) it is much used for walking sticks, 

 hoops, and hop-poles; and it matures its wood at 

 so early an age, that an Ash-pole, three inches in 

 diameter, is as valuable and durable for any pur- 

 pose to which it can be applied, as the timber of 

 the largest tree. *^The use of Ash is (next to 

 that of the Oak itself) one of the most universal : 

 It serves the soldier * — and heretofore the scholar, 

 who made use of the inner bark to write on, before 

 the invention of paper. The carpenter, wheel- 

 wright and cart-wright find it excellent for plows, 

 axle-trees, wheel-rings, and harrows ; it makes 

 good oars, blocks for pulleys, and sheffs, as seamen 

 name them : for drying herrings no wood is like 

 it, and the bark is good for the tanning of nets ; 

 and, like the Elm (for the same property of not 

 being apt to split or scale), is excellent for tenons 

 and mortises ; also for the cooper, turner, and 

 thatcher ; nothing is like it for our garden pali- 

 sade hedges, hop-yards, poles and spars, handles 

 and stocks for tools, spade-trees, &c. In summer, 

 the husbandman cannot be without the iVsh for 

 his carts, ladders, and other tackling, from the 

 pike, spear, and bow, to the plow ; for of Ash 

 were they formerly made, and therefore reckoned 

 amongst those woods which, after long tension, 

 j has a natural spring, and recovers its position, so 

 ' as in peace and war it is a wood in liighest re- 

 ! quest: In short, so useful and profitable is this 



* Spears were anciently made of IMyrtle, Cornel and Hazel, "but 

 Pliny prefers the Ash for that purnose. 



