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

(18) Hazel Tree. The wood makes excellent charcoal for forges. Fishing-rods, walking-sticks, crates, hoops for barrels, shoots for springles to fasten down thatch, hurdles, etc., are made of this wood. Hazel chips will clear turbid wine in twenty-four hours, and twigs of hazel twisted together will serve for yeast in brewing.

Hazel wands were used in divination, for detecting minerals, water-springs, and hid treasures. (See Dousterswivel, p. 298.)

By whatsoever occult virtue the forked hazel stick discovers not only subterraneous treasure, but criminals guilty of murder and other crimes, made out so solemnly by the attestation of magistrates and divers other learned and credible persons who have critically examined matters of fact, is certainly next to a miracle, and requires a strong faith.—Evelyn: Sylva (1664).

The small hole bored through the shell of hazel nuts is not the work of squirrels, but of field-mice; squirrels always split the shells.

(19) Holly Tree. Birdlime is made from it. The wood is used for veneering, handles of knives, the cogs of mill-wheels, hones for whetting knives and razors, coachmen’s whips, Tunbridge ware.

(20) Ivy. The roots are used by leather-cutters for whetting their knives; and when the roots are large, boxes and slabs are made from them.

It is said that apricots and peaches protected in winter by ivy fencing become remarkably productive.

(21) Juniper is never attacked by worms.—B. P.

The wood is used for veneering; and alcohol or spirits of wine, impregnated with the essential oil of juniper berries, is gin (or juniper water); for the French genevre means “a juniper berry.” Ordinarily, gin is a malt liquor, distilled a second time, with the addition of juniper berries, or more frequently with the oil of turpentine.

(22) Larch, very apt to warp, but it resists decay. It bursts into leaf between March 21 and April 14.

Le bois du mélèze l’emperte en bonté et en durée sur celui des pins et des sapins. On en fait des gouttières des conduits d’eaux souterraines, de bonnes charpentes; il entre dans la construction des petits bâtiments de mer. Les peintres s’en servent pour faire les cadres de leurs tableaux.—Bouillet: Dict. Univ. des Sciences.

(23) Lime or Linden Tree. Grinling Gibbons, the great wood-carver, used no other wood but that of the lime tree, which is soft, light, smooth, close-grained, and not subject to the worm. For the same reason, it is the chief material of Tunbridge ware. Bellonius states that the Greeks used the wood for making bottles.

Lime wood makes excellent charcoal for gunpowder, and is employed for buttons and leather-cutters’ boards. The flowers afford the best honey for bees, and the famous Kowno honey is made exclusively from the linden blossoms.

It was one of the trees from which papyrus was made, and in the library of Vienna is a work of Cicero written on the inner bark of the linden.

One other thing is worth mentioning. Hares and rabbits will never injure the bark of this tree.

The lime is the first of all trees to shed its leaves in autumn. It bursts into leaf between April 6 and May 2.

At Deopham, in Norfolk, was a lime tree which, Evelyn tells us, was 36 feet in girth and 90 feet in height. Strutt tells us of one in Moor Park, Hertfordshire, 17 feet in girth (3 feet above the ground) and 100 feet