154 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



" farmer's friend," and before the iron and steel age had displaced the wood 

 in the manufacture of agricultural implements this was truer than it even 

 now appears. For resisting a sudden strain or bearing a heavy weight a 

 beam of well -grown ash timber will not suffer by comparison with any other 

 European timber, oak not excepted. Unlike most other trees, it is found 

 the quicker it is grown the better timber it produces. Loving a rich 

 loamy soil with plenty of moisture, it grows so rapidly that it is not unusual 

 to find a shoot from six to nine feet of a single season. Those which spring 

 from the earth, whether planted or self-sown, are known as " ground ash/' 

 and are noted for their pliability and toughness, being always in much request 

 for tool handles, such as hammers, hoes, forks, walking sticks, alpen stocks, 

 &c. Whilst the poles cut from " pollard ash," i.e. an old trunk cut down 

 and the stool or bole allowed to produce a multitude of slender stemlets, 

 forming a dense bushy crown, are not so dependable, but are useful for 

 hurdles, stakes, crates, &c. The mature wood of the ash displays very large 

 vessels in the concentric rings or annual layers of wood, by which it is easily 

 known amongst other timber. In habit the ash exhibits a peculiar trait 

 which adds much to its beauty in the landscape, and has long been noted by 

 observers of nature. The branches primarily leave the trunk at an acute 

 angle, but they soon bend outward with a graceful sweep, and then in old 

 trees curve upwards at the extremities of the branches. A well known 

 variety is the " weeping ash," whose pendulous branches make it a most 

 ornamental object, and extremely suitable for arbours. The original plant 

 the parent of all the trees known in cultivation was accidentally discovered in 

 a forest in Cambridgeshire. It bears pistillate flowers only, and although it 

 produces plenty of flowers and seeds, the trees grown from such seeds soon 

 lose their tendency to bend, their distinctive character disappears and they 

 resume their normal appearance. The peculiar drooping habit can only be 

 perpetuated by cuttings or grafts from the original stock. The same peculi- 

 arity is manifested by the " weeping willow " which requires to be propagated 

 in a similar manner. These plants are admirable illustrations of the property 

 inherent in plants of transmitting any peculiar habit or character through an 

 indefinite extent of time by sub-division of the individual, which cuttings 

 really are, whilst manifesting a strong tendency to revert to the original type, 

 or it may be to diverge into fresh vagaries of form, when reproduced in the 

 ordinary way from seeds. The young twigs of ash instead of being round are 

 much flattened and broadened out betwixt each pair of leaves, and the 

 broader diameter cross above each node from which the leaves spring. A 

 curious malformation also frequently occurs, known as fasciation, in which 

 the branch is broadened out into a ribbon-like expansion, which often 



