Chapter Traveller to Trees noted for Specific Virtues and Uses of T by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Tree of Life (The), a tree in the “midst of the garden” of paradise, which, if Adam had plucked and eaten of, he would have “lived for ever.”—Gen. ii. 9; iii. 22.

Out of the fertile ground [God] caused to grow
All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;
And all amid them stood the Tree of Life,
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
Of vegetable gold.
   —Milton: Paradise Lost, iv. 215, etc. (1665).

Trees noted for Specific Virtues and Uses.

Those articles marked B. P. are from William Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals (1613).

(1) Alder, good for water-pipes and piles, capital for the foundations of buildings situated upon bogs; it becomes black as jet and almost imperishable when used for piles in swamps or under water. The Rialto of Venice is founded on alder—a wood excellent for clogs, shoe-heels, wooden shoes, the cogs of mill- wheels, turnery, chairs, poles, and garden props.

It is said that fleas dislike it.

Alder nourishes whatever plant grows under its shadow.—B. P.

(2) Ash, the Venus of the forest.—Gilpin: Forest Scenery (1791).

Used for all tools employed in husbandry—carts, waggons, wheels, pulleys, and oars. It bursts into leaf between May 13 and June 14.

Grass will grow beneath it.

At Donirey, near Clare, is the hollow trunk of an ash tree 42 feet in circumference, in which a little school used to be kept.—Young: Irish Tour (1775–6).

In Woburn Park is an ash tree 90 feet high, 15 feet in girth (3 feet from the ground), and containing a grand total of 872 cubic feet of timber.—Strutt: Sylva Britannica.

The ash tree at Carnock, planted in 1596, supposed to be the largest in Scotland, is 90 feet high and 19 feet in girth (5 feet from the ground).—Ditto.

Dr. Walker says he measured an ash tree in Lochaber churchyard, Scotland, 58 feet in girth (5 feet from the ground).

(3) Aspen Tree. No grass will grow in its vicinity. The legend is that the cross of Jesus was made of this wood, and hence its leaves were doomed to tremble till the day of doom.

Ah! tremble, tremble, aspen tree!
We need not ask thee why thou shakest;
For if, as holy legend saith,
On thee the Saviour bled to death,
No wonder, aspen, that thou quakest!
And, till in judgment all assemble,
Thy leaves accursed shall wail and tremble.
   —E. C. B.

(4) Beech Tree, employed for clogs, tool-handles, planes, mallets, turnery, large wooden screws, sounding- boards of musical instruments, scabbards, band-boxes, book-covers, coffins, chairs, and bedsteads; but for chairs and bedsteads it is not fit, as it is a favourite resort of the plinus pectinicornis, whose eggs are deposited on the surface of the wood, and the young worms eat their way in. Floats for nets are made of the bark. It is excellent for wood fires, and is called in France bois d’Andelle. The beech bursts into leaf between April 19 and May 7.

“The Twelve Apostles.” On an island of the lake Wetter, were twelve majestic beech trees, now reduced to eleven, for a zealous peasant cut down one of them, declaring “that the traitor Judas should have no