SECTION XIII. 



477 



building, and the like. " In Buckinghamshire (he says,) after twenty 

 years, it becomes tithe-free ; but if any Beech is felled, and another 

 from the same grows up, this is to be tithed whenever it is cut down." 

 — Chiltern and Vale Farming^ pp. 93, 94. 



Note IX. Page 321. 



The Beech had its name of Fagus from the Greek cjiayos, (Dor. <prjyoSf) 

 from ^r]y(o, to eat — because men at first lived on the mast of trees, 

 before the use of corn. According to the Linnsean arrangement, this 

 tree stands in the class Monoecia polyandria^ and is botanically de- 

 scribed as Fagus silvatica^foliis ovatis obsolete serratis. — Hort. Cliff, p. 

 447. An accurate botanist characterises it as follows : Fagus silvatica, 

 foUis ovatis obsolete serratis, acideis fructus simplicihus. — Smith, Flor. 

 Britan. t. iii. p. 1028. 



Bradley and other writers make mention of two varieties of this 

 tree. The first they call the White or Silver Beech, from the colour 

 of its wood, or of its bark, or probably of both ; and the second they 

 name the Black-grained Beech, for similar reasons. To the former they 

 also give the appellation of the Mountain Beech ; as it is supposed to 

 thrive best in elevated situations, and on the sides of steep and chalky 

 declivities. The latter they name the Wild or Vale Beech, from its 

 being adapted to the deep loam of the Chiltern country, where it will 

 make profitable returns. As for the nurserymen, with their usual in- 

 curiousness, they never inquire after these varieties, however interesting 

 they may be to the planter, but raise and sell them together as only one 

 sort. Besides these two principal varieties, there are the two others, 

 well known to nurserymen — the one with white, the other with yellow 

 stripes ; but they are both mere shrubs. There is also the purple- 

 copper- coloured Beech of Germany, which is now common as an 

 ornamental tree in our plantations. 



Note X. Page 322. 



Caesar, in his descriptive sketch of Britain, says that the woods of 

 that country are nearly the same as those of Gaul, only that the former 

 are without the Spruce Fir and the Beech ; Materia cujusque generis, 

 prcEter Fagum et Ahietem. — De Bel. Gal. lib. v. 12. Lightfoot doubts if 

 the Beech be a native of Scotland ; and Marshall is of opinion, that in 

 the northern counties of England it is not indigenous. We know that 

 it is not found in the northern provinces of Sweden ; and that it is little 

 more than a century since it began to be cultivated in Scotland at all. 



