485 
In the north of Lancashire they lop the Ash to feed the cattle in autumn, when the grass is upon 
the decline, the cattle peeling off the bark. 1 In queen Elizabeth's time the inhabitants of Colton 
and Hawkshead fells remonstrated against the number of forges in the country, because they con¬ 
sumed all the loppings and croppings, which were the sole winter food for their cattle. 2 In forests, 
the keepers browze the deer on summer evenings with the spray of ash, that they may not stray too 
far from their walk. 3 The leaves have been gathered to mix with tea; and poor people in some 
places have made a considerable advantage by collecting them for this purpose. 4 
If any cows eat of the leaves or shoots, the butter which is made of their milk will be rank; 
which is always the case with the butter which is made about Guilford and Godalmin, and in some 
other parts of Surry, where there are Ash-trees growing about all their pastures: and in good dairy 
countries they never suffer an Ash-tree to grow. 
The truth of this fact is doubted by others; for it is certain that there is no taste in ash leaves 
to countenance the assertion, and that this is the next tree after the elm which the Romans recom¬ 
mended for fodder. s 
Though it be a handsome tree, the Ash ought not by any means to be planted for protection, or 
ornament, because the leaves come out late, and fall early. The fertile trees also generally exhaust 
themselves so much in bearing keys or fruit, that their foliage is scanty, and their appearance un¬ 
sightly. The trees, however, which bear female flowers only, have a full and verdant foliage, and 
make a handsome figure, though late in the season. 6 It is well calculated for standards and clumps 
in large parks and plantations, and for groves and woods. 7 “ Fraxinus in sylvis pulcherrima.”—It 
will grow in very barren soil, and in the bleakest and most exposed situations. 8 It is so hardy as to 
endure the sea winds well, and may therefore be planted on the coast, where few trees will 9 prosper. 
If planted by ditch sides, or in low boggy meadows, the roots act as underdrains, and render the 
ground about them firm and hard; the timber, however, is in this case but of little value. It was 
natural that our remote ancestors, when the island was over-run with wood, should value trees 
rather for their fruit than their timber: it is no wonder, then, that by the laws of Howel Dda, the 
the price of an oak or a beech should be 120 pence, while the ash, because it furnished no food for 
swine, was valued only at four-pence. 
It is not common to see the Ash of a very great size: instances, however, of large trees are not 
wanting. Dr. Plot mentions one of eight feet diameter, valued at thirty pounds. Mr. Marsham 
informs us of another in Benel church-yard near Dunbarton in Scotland, measuring in 1768, sixteen 
feet nine inches in girt, at five feet from the ground. Mr. Evelyn says that divers were lately sold 
in Essex, in length one hundred and thirty-two feet. Mr. Arthur Young, in his Irish Tour, mentions 
some of seventy and eighty feet in height, which were only of thirty-five years growth. The trunk 
of one on the bank of the Avonmore was above fourteen feet round, and carried nearly the same 
dimensions for eighteen feet. An Ash at Dunganstown is twelve feet round, and quite clear of 
branches for thirty feet, where it measures ten feet round, and the arms extend in beautiful forms 
twenty-eight yards. At Tiny Park is another, the circumference of which in the smallest part some¬ 
what exceeds nineteen feet, or six feet four inches diameter. At Luttrelstown, the seat of the Earl 
of Carhampton, are several Ash-trees from eleven to thirteen feet six inches round; one here was 
1 Stokes in Withering. 
3 Gilpin's For. Seen. 2. 280, 
5 Gent. Mag. as above. 6 Ibid. 
3 Boutcher. 
* Pennant's Tour 1772, p. 29- 
4 Gent. Mag. as above. 
7 Hunter's Evelyn. 
9 Lightfoot. 
O 
6 G 
