By havock, wounds and blows, More lively and luxuriant grows.{ 89:1}
Ash will be propagated from a bough slipt off with some of the old wood, a little before the bud swells, but with difficulty by layers. Such as they reserve for spears in Spain, they keep shrip’d up close to the stem, and plant them in close order, and moister places. These they cut above the knot (for the least nodosity spoils all) in the decrease of January, which were of the latest for us: It is reported that the ash will not only receive its own kind, but graff, or be inoculated with the pear and apple, but to what improvement I know not.
3. It is by no means convenient to plant ash in plow-lands; for the roots will be obnoxious to the coulter; and the shade of the tree is malignant both to corn and grass, when the head and branches over-drip and emaciate ’em; but in hedge-rows and plumps, they will thrive exceedingly, where they may be dispos’d at nine or ten foot distance, and sometimes nearer: But in planting of a whole wood of several kinds of trees for timber, every third set at least, would be an ash. The best ash delights in the best land (which it will soon impoverish) yet grows in any; so it be not over-stiff, wet, and approaching to the marshy, unless it be first well drain’d: By the banks of sweet, and crystal rivers and streams, I have observ’d them to thrive infinitely. One may observe as manifest a difference in the timber of ashes, as of the oak; much more than is found in any one kind of elm, _cœteris paribus_: For so the ground-ash (like the oak) much excels a bough, or branch of the same bulk, for strength and toughness; and in yet farther emulation of the oak, it has been known to prove as good and lasting timber for building, nay, preferr’d before it, where there has been plenty of oak; vast difference there is also in the strength of ground, and quarter’d ash: ’Tis likewise remarkable that the ash, like the cork-tree, grows when the bark is as it were quite peel’d off, as has been observ’d in several forests, where the deer have bared them as far as they could climb: Some ash is curiously camleted and vein’d, I say, so differently from other timber, that our skilful cabinet-makers prize it equal with ebony, and give it the name of green ebony, which the customer pays well for; and when our wood-men light upon it, they may make what money they will of it: But to bring it to that curious lustre, so as ’tis hardly to be distinguished from the most curiously diaper’d olive, they varnish their work with the china-varnish, (hereafter described) which infinitely excels linseed-oyl, that Cardan so commends, speaking of this root. The truth is, the _bruscum_ and _molluscum_ to be frequently found in this wood, is nothing inferior to that of maple, (of which hereafter) being altogether as exquisitely diaper’d, and wav’d like the gamahes of Achates; an eminent example of divers strange figures of fish, men and beasts, Dr. Plott speaks of to be found in a dining-table made of an old ash, standing in a gentleman’s house somewhere in Oxfordshire: Upon which is mention’d that of Jacobus Gaffarellus, in his book of _Unheard-of Curiosities_; namely of a tree found in Holland, which being cleft, had in the several slivers, the figures of a chalice, a priest’s albe, his stole, and several other pontifical vestments: Of this sort was the elm growing at Middle-Aston in Oxfordshire, a block of which wood being cleft, there came out a piece so exactly resembling a shoulder of veal, that it was worthy to be reckon’d among the curiosities of this nature.