46 
WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES. 
where both soil and atmosphere are moist and cool ; where 
it has had elbow-room to reach its long graceful arms upwards 
and outwards, and to cover them with the plumy circlets of 
long leaves. It is there, or on the outskirts of the wood, or 
Ash. 
in the hedgerow, that the Ash is able to do credit to Gilpin’s 
name for it. 
Before the reign of iron and steel was quite so universal. 
Ash timber was in dem,and for many uses where the metals 
have now supplanted it. It was then far more widely grown 
as a hedgerow tree than is now the case. Selby laments the 
neglect of this former custom, which kept up a supply of 
