SOME LITTLE ASHES There are species of ash of small size and limited area that may be named in passing, but which do not rank among the important species. Fraxinus anotnala, in the corner where Colo rado, Nevada and Utah meet, is interesting because its leaf is reduced to one leaflet, rarely two or three. The winged seed declares it an ash. Fraxinus Greggii, a little ash on the rocky bluffs of western Texas, has its leaves and fruits reduced to miniature size, and exhibits peculiarly webbed or winged petioles.
The Biltmore Ash (Fraxinus Billnzoreana, Beadl.) is a small tree quite common about Biltmore, North Carolina. It is closely allied to the white ash, but its leaves and young twigs are densely coated with fine hairs. Very strangely the seedling trees are smooth until four or five years old, after which the young growth is pubescent.
Another little ash (Fraxinus velutina, Torr.) grows in the Southwest, extending from Texas to California, climbing to the tops of dry mesas and the walls of canons, or lending itself to husbandry by shading irrigation ditches and village streets. Its leaflets are narrow and tapering, becoming thick and leathery and occasionally velvety in the hottest, dryest regions. It is distinctly the friend of man in a region where trees are most appreciated. Its wood is good for axe-handles and wagons.
The Mountain Ash (F. Texensis, Sarg.) grows on the lime stone hills and gravelly ridges of western Texas, a small or medium sized tree with broadly oval leaflets, and small broad-winged seeds. Its wood makes excellent flooring, but is chiefly used as fuel, as it rarely attains sufficient size for lumber.
The Flowering Ash (F. Ornus) of southern Europe and Asia Minor, yields the manna of commerce, a medicinal wax which exudes from the leaves and trunk. Chinese white wax comes from a species in eastern Asia.
The European Ash (F. excelsior) is a large timber tree, native also to western Asia. Evelyn ranked its wood next to oak in universal usefulness. Scholars wrote on its inner bark before paper was invented. Lances and spears, shields, pikes and bows of it armed the soldier in days of old. Implements of all sorts were made of ash from the infancy of agriculture and mechanics. "The husbandman's tree," it was called, for "ploughs, axle trees, wheel-rings, harrows, balls; . . . oars, blocks for
pulleys, tenons and mortises, poles, spars, handles and stocks for tools, spade trees, carts, ladders. . . . In short so good and profitable is this tree that every prudent Lord of a Manor should employ one acre of ground with Ash to every twenty acres of other land, since in as many years it would be more worth than the land itself." William Cobbett gives the ash a good character. He com mends the keys for fattening hogs. "The seeds of ash are very full of oil, and a pig that is put to his shifts will pick the seeds very nicely out from the husks." He says further: "The ash will grow anywhere." "It is the hardiest of our large trees." "On the coasts the trees all, even the firs, lean from the sea breeze, except the ash. It stands upright, as if in a warm, wooded dell. We have no tree that attains greater height or bears prun ing better, none that equals the ash in beauty of leaf or usefulness of timber. It is ready for the wheelwright at twenty years or less." Young ash saplings are cut when only five or six years old and used in making crates for chinaware. When steamed the wood may be bent to any shape, which makes it valuable for hoops. An ash tree 3 inches in diameter is as valuable for spade and fork handles as it will ever be. Walking sticks and whip handles use up still smaller stuff, the very tough second growth, or "stooled" shoots.
The ash is a tree of great reputation in Europe, aside from its lumber value. It is the World Tree—I gdrasil—of the Norse mythology, out of which sprung the race of men. It dominated the whole universe. Did not its roots penetrating the earth reach even to the cold and darkness of the Under World? Its giant top supported the Heavens. The Fount of -Wisdom and Knowledge was at its base—so were the abodes of the Gods and the Giants. The Fates, also, dwelt there, who held in their hands the destinies of men. There were the Nornies "continually watering the roots of this world-shadowing tree with honey-dew." Hesiod in the South declares that a race of brazen men sprung from the ash tree. In those days, when the world was new, men sprang from oak trees, or from the soil, or the rifted rock, according to the legends and fables handed down to us.