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JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
to that of Oak itself) one of the most universal : It serves the 
soldier — et Fraxinus utilis hast is — and heretofore the scholar, who 
made use of the inner hark to write on, hefore the invention of 
paper. The carpenter, wheelwright, and cartwright find it excellent 
for ploughs, axle-trees, wheel-rings, harrows, hutts ; it makes good 
oars, blocks for pullies, and sheffs, as seamen name them : For 
drying herrings no wood is like it, and the bark is good for the 
tanning of nets ; and is excellent for tenons and 
mortises ; also for the cooper, turner, and thatcher ; nothing is 
like it for our garden palisade hedges, hop-yards, poles, and spars, 
handles and stocks for tool.*, spade-trees, &c. In sum, the husband- 
man cannot be without the Ash for his carts, and other tackling, 
from the pike, spear, and bow, to the plough; for of Ash were 
they formerly made, and therefore reckoned amongst those woods 
which, after long tension, have a natural spring, and recover their 
position ; so as in peace and war it is a wood in highest request." 
The excellency of Ash-wood for handles of spears and implements 
of war seems to have been recognized at an early period. Such 
expressions as " Ashen-spear," "Ashen-lance," "Ashen-javelins," 
"Brass-tipped-ash" are of frequent occurrence in the Iliad ; and 
Homer states of Achilles that 
" Forth from its case he drew his father's spear, 
Which he alone of all the Achaian host 
Could wield — huge, ponderous, strong, the Pelian ash, 
Which erst from Pelion's top, for his dear sire 
Chiron had felled, to be the bane of heroes." 
Iliad xix., 402-6, Wright's translation. 
The poet mentions this " Pelian ash " at least four times. 
2. The Ash and the Mistletoe: — "P. P.," writing in the 
Athenteum of 17th October, 1846 (No. 990, p. 1068), says, "The 
mistletoe is often found on the ash ;" and Mr. J. C. Loudon, in his 
Enclydopwdia of Plants, 1836, p. 830, includes the Ash amongst 
the trees on which it will grow. 
3. Ash-Trees and Insects : — Mr. S. Redmond, writing in Notes 
and Queries, 4th s., i. 226, of "the Valley of the river Slaney, in 
the county of Wexford," says, " In the gardens and about the 
orchards of the same district ash-trees were planted and cultivated 
with much care, as it was stated that insects, destructive of fruit 
