338 



THE BEECH. 



parts of France," says Evelyn, "they grind the 

 buck in mills." Buck-wheat, the seed of Poly- 

 gonum Fag opy rum ^ derives its name from its simi- 

 larity in shape to the mast of the Beech. The 

 wood of the tree having been formerly used for 

 forming the sides of volumes, the word " book " 

 came to be applied to the volume itself. * 



The common Beech is always raised from seed, 

 and the varieties are propagated by grafting or 

 budding. The mast soon loses its germinating 

 power, and is therefore never sown later than the 

 spring of the year w^hich follows its ripening. The 

 seed leaves, which appear above the ground in 

 April or May, are singularly pale, and at the first 

 glance might be mistaken for a fungus. In ten 

 years the tree reaches a height of about twenty 

 feet. In sixty or eighty years it has usually attain- 

 ed its perfection as timber, but lives for a much 

 longer period. It is not well adapted for coppice- 

 wood, ceasing to send up shoots after about thirty 

 or forty years ; though if cut down before this 



* It is worth noticing how many words connected with literature 

 bear allusion to the materials anciently used in writing, &c. The 

 substances first employed were tables of stone and metal ; from this 

 source we derive the expression " Tables of W^eights and Measures." 

 Tables of wood were afterwards employed, covered with wax, which 

 were written on b}^ means of an instrument pointed at one end for 

 forming the letters, rounded at the other for the convenience of 

 erasing : this was called a style^ a word which we retain with an al- 

 tered meaning. Paper is derived from the Egyptian papyrus : we 

 still speak of the leaves of a book, though the leaves of the Palm tree 

 are no longer used for the purpose of writing on. Folio is from 

 the IjRtm, folium^ a leaf. Liher^ the Latin for a book, meant originally 

 the inner bark of such trees as the Lime, the Ash, the Maple, the 

 Elm, at one period a common writing material : hence we call a 

 collection of books, a library. This substance being rolled for the 

 convenience of carriage, a collection of writings was called a volume, 

 a name afterwards given to like rolls of paper and parchment. 



