80 
DIANDHIA. MONOGYNIA. Fraxinus. 
Var. 2. Simple-leaved Ash. F. heterophylla. Vahl. Sm. F. simplicifolia. 
Willd. Leaves simple. T. H. W. in Gent. Mag-, vol. iv. p. £98. 
Raised from seeds., it produces pinnate leaves. 
whose light and airy foliage emulates that of the Acacia. While yet the sturdy Oak 
remains unchanged, the Elm assumes a golden yellow, and the Ash is denuded by the 
first frosty night, ere 
“ The woodpathis carpeted over with leaves, 
And the glories of autumn decay.” 
As the foliation of the Ash affords a just criterion to the gardener when prudently to 
venture green-house plants into the open air, so the first change of the leaf should be 
considered the sighal for withdrawing them. Many Ash trees bear loads of Keys every 
year, with very few leaves. These are unsighty plants, and very soon stripped of their 
foliage. In the darker ages the Ash was associated wilh various gross superstitions, 
whose vestiges may still be traced, as by Mr. White in Hampshire. “ In a farm¬ 
yard near the middle of the village of Sel borne, stands,” (in 1776) “ a row of pol¬ 
lard Ashes, which by the seams and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show 
that, in former times, they have been cleft asunder. These trees, when young and 
flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped 
naked, w r ere pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that, by such a pro¬ 
cess, the poor babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the operation was 
over, the tree w as plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. On the Plestor, an 
area near the church, lately stood a very old grotesque hollow pollard, 
“ Religione patrum nmltos servata per annos,” 
and held in no small veneration as a Shrew Ash, prepared with certain ceremonies and 
incantations, so that its branches gently applied to the limbs of cattle supposed to be 
suffering cruel anguish from the baneful run of the shrew-mouse, produced instant 
relief. E.) The Ash flourishes best in groves, but it grow's very well in rich soil in open 
fields. It bears transplanting and lopping. Horses, cows, sheep, and goats eat it: 
but it spoils the milk of cows, so that it should not be planted in dairy farms. In the 
north of Lancashire the tops of these trees are topped to feed the cattle in autumn 
when the grass is upon the decline, the cattle peeling off the bark as food. In very 
dry summers the farmers about Caunock, Staffordshire, in default of grass, feed their cows 
with the leaves. (And such is the practice in the Tyrol, and was general in England 
before the improvement of grass lands, and also prevailed with the Romans. E.) 
In Queen Elizabeth’s time, the inhabitants of Colton and Hawkshead Fell remon¬ 
strated against the number forges in the country, because they consumed ail the 
loppings and croppings, the sole winter food for their cattle. Penn. Tour. 1772, p. 29.— 
When growing by the water side, and of some considerable age, it branches frequently 
hang down somewhat in the manner of the weeping Willow, (“ stooping, as if to drink,” 
as the poet fancifully expresses it. E.) The roots run near the surface, and extend 
themselves to a great distance, whence it is destructive to the herbage of upland pas¬ 
tures; but if planted on the margins of ditches or low boggy meadows, the roots act 
as under-drains, and render the ground about them firm and hard ; the wood is, however, 
in this case, but of little value. Mr. Woodward. (Ash is also used for oars and 
pullies, and much employed by coachmakers. Mr. Boutcher has proved by actual ex¬ 
periment that one acre of indifferent land, within reach of market, planted with six 
year old Ash plants, in row's six feet asunder, and the sets three feet distant in the row, 
cut every five or six years, will yield in twenty-three years, without any other exper.ee 
than digging the ground the first few years, and cutting the coppice, at least ;£100. 
Mr. Arthur Young, in his Irish Tour, records several Ash trees of vast dimensions : at 
Honirey, near Clare, a hollow trunk, forty-two feet in circumference, and a little school 
kept within it. For beautiful vepresentation^of Ash trees, remarkable for size, we 
would refer to Strutt’s Sylva Britannica, in which are depicted one in Woburn 
Park, measuring ninety feet in height, fifteen feet in girt, at three feet from the ground, 
and containing a grand total of 872 cubic feet of timber. Also the Ash at Carnock, 
