HORNBEAM. 229 
The roots are used by cabinet makers for veneering : 
and, in Italy, the chips of hazel are sometimes put into 
turbid wine for the purpose of fining it. 
242. The HORNBEAM (Carpinus betulus, Fig. 73) is a 
forest tree which grows to the height of sixty or seventy feet, yet 
'seldom exceeds fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, has smooth 
white bark, marked zcith grey spots, and leaves about three 
inches long and two broad, oval, pointed, and serrated. 
Asa timber-tree the hornbeam is more esteemed on 
the Continent than in this country. It grows readily 
in stiff soils, particularly on the sides of hills ; and is 
easily transplanted. The- wood, which is white, hard, 
and tough, is used by turners ; and is wrought into 
cogs for mill-wheels, screw-presses, the heads of beetles, 
handles of working tools, and other instruments and 
machinery in which great strength is required. As fuel 
it is preferred, on account of its readier inflammability, 
to most other kinds of wood. The inner bark is used, 
in some countries, for dyeing yellow. 
From the foliage of the hornbeam being luxuriant, 
and admitting of being clipped, without injury, into 
any of those forms which the old French garden style 
required, this tree was formerly much more planted in 
England than it is at present. It preserves a great por- 
tion of its withered leaves through the winter ; and, if 
properly planted as a hedge, it forms an excellent fence. 
The German husbandman, when he erects a fence of 
hornbeam, throws up a parapet of earth, with a ditch 
on each side, and plants his sets (which he raises from 
layers) in such a manner that every two plants may be 
brought to intersect each other, in the form of a St. 
Andrew's cross. In that part where the plants cross, 
he scrapes off the bark, and bends them closely together 
with straw. In consequence of this operation the two 
plants consolidate into a sort of indissoluble knot, and 
push, from the place of junction, horizontal slanting 
shoots, which form a living palisado or chevaux de 
Jri&e ; so that such a protection muy be called a rural 
