Saunders, F.R.S. ;! and Mr. Sidney Webb fully explained the manner in which exten- sive canker resulted from minute wounds, at a meeting of the Scientific Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society, February 11, 1879. A full account of the disease is given by Dr. Masters in the Gardeners Chronicle, 1879, p. 208, where it is stated that the injury is originated by the larva of a minute moth called Prays curtisellus.2 Plate 244 shows a bad case of this canker in an ash at Staple, near Colesborne; and there is a tree at least 70 feet high by the roadside, close to the sixth milestone from Cirencester to Cheltenham, which has had this disease from its base to near the summit as long as I can remember.
In Trans. Scot. Arb. x. 235, there is a useful paper on the Ash Bark Beetle, Hylesinus Fraxini, a pest which seems to be dangerous only where the ash is already unhealthy. As the eggs of this insect are laid in spring only under the bark of felled, dead, or sickly trees, wherever this pest is troublesome, all such should be removed from the neighbourhood of the healthy trees by April, and ash loppings should not be left on the ground. A curious malformation occurs in a tree growing close to Cirencester, on the east side of the Tetbury road nearly opposite the Kennels. Plate 244 shows the remarkable growths on its branches, specimens of which were sent to Kew and found to contain numerous examples of Hylesinus Fraxini.
Timber
For coach, waggon, and agricultural implement making, and for all purposes in which strength, toughness, and durability are required, ash timber has no equal, and no substitute has been found among foreign trees which can be relied on as well. In consequence, it is now the easiest to sell, if not quite the highest priced, of all English timbers ; and its growing scarcity seems to point to a great future for it.
It varies much, however, in strength, toughness, and elasticity, according to the soil on which it is grown, and the age at which it is cut. I am informed by Mr. Clutterbuck of the Gloucester Waggon Works, who has had long experience with English and foreign timber, that there is no better ash in England than that grown on the Cotswold hills; but if left standing too long, it becomes discoloured at the heart, and is probably never worth more per foot than when 60 or 70 years old.
It is now perhaps the only wood worth growing as copsewood, and, when estab- lished on good land and cut every ten to fifteen years, still makes as much as a pound per acre per annum. The poles are used for making hurdles, hoops, crates, and many other purposes, and as hop-poles are only second to chestnut. I have found that for the rails of light field-gates in a hunting country, on account of their elasticity nothing is better ; and when well made they last thirty years or more. Ash wood takes creosote well, which very much increases its durability ; and some sheep- hurdles which I had creosoted thirteen years ago are still sound, though when not so treated, they do not last more than three to five years. Ash, however, soon decays in contact with the soil and is unfit for building purposes, though it was
1 Journ. Roy, Hort. Soc. v. 135 (1879).
2 Also known as Tinea curtisella, Don. Cf. Schlich’s Man. Forestry, iv. 344 (1907), where the moth is figured and described.
