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

At Tortworth, in Gloucestershire, is a chestnut tree 52 feet in girth. Even in 1150 it was called “the great chestnut tree of Tortworth.” Mr. Marsham says it was 540 years old when king John came to the throne, which would carry us back to the heptarchy. If so, this tree has rallied the whole history of England from the Roman period to our own. The horse chestnut bursts into leaf between March 17 and April 19. The Spanish chestnut fully a month later.

(11) Cypress hurts the least of all trees by its droppings.—B. P.

(12) Dog Rose. So called by the Greeks (kunorodon), because the root was deemed a cure for the bite of a mad dog.

(13) Elder Tree, used for skewers, tops of angling-rods, needles for netting, turnery. The pith is used for electrometers and in electrical experiments.

An infusion of elder leaves will destroy insects on delicate plants better than tobacco-juice; and if turnips, cabbages, fruit trees, etc., are brushed with a branch of elder leaves, no insect will infest the plants.—Philosophical Transactions, v. 62, p. 348.

(14) Elm is used for axle-trees, mill-wheels, keels of boats, gunwales chairs, coffins, rails, gates, under- ground pipes, pumps, millwork, pattens.

Grass will grow beneath its shade.

The elm is pre-eminent for the tenacity of its wood, which never splinters. It is the first of forest trees to burst into leaf.

Toads and frogs are often embedded in elm trees. They crept into some hollow place or crack, and became imprisoned by the glutinous fluid of the new inner bark (liber and alburnum). Some have been found alive when the tree is cut down, but they need not have been embedded long.

At Hampstead there was once a famous hollow elm, which had a staircase within and seats at the top.—Park: Topography.

At Blythfield, in Staffordshire, was an elm which, Ray tells us, furnished 8660 feet of planks, weighing 97 tons.

The elm at Chequers, Buckinghamshire, was planted in the reign of Stephen; the shell is now 31 feet in girth. The Chepstead Elm, Kent, contains 268 feet of timber, and is 15 feet in girth; it is said to have had an annual fair beneath its shade in the reign of Henry V. The elm at Crawley, in Sussex, is 70 feet high and 35 feet in girth.—Strutt: Sylva Britannica.

(15) Fig Tree. The leaves of this tree have the property of maturing game and meat hung amongst them.

(16) Fir Tree. In Ireland the bog firs, beaten into string, are manufactured into rope, capable of resisting the weather much longer than hempen ropes. The bark can be used for tan. Tar and pitch are obtained from the trunk and branches. The thinnings of fir forests will do for hop-poles, scantlings, and rafters, and its timber is used by builders.

Grass will not grow beneath fir trees.

(17) Guelder Rose. From the bark of the root birdlime is made. The shoots make excellent bands for faggots.

Evelyn says a decoction of the leaves will dye the hair black and strengthen it.