Farmer's Calendar - September 2008

'No tree in the woods is a better friend to man than the common ash. It hasn't the maple's beauty or the oak's prestige, and it isn't a cabinetmaker's tree. But its wood has a straight, open grain and is easily worked for tool handles, sports equipment, baskets and many other utilitarian applications. The spears of Homer's warrior princes in the Iliad--the first superheroes--had their shafts made of ash.

'In the lore of woodburning, the ash has its unique place. It's supposed to make the best cordwood because it will burn as well green as it will seasoned. "Ashwood new or ashwood old / Is fit for a king with a crown of gold," went the old-timer's woodpile rhyme. Is it true? Ican't say, except in one way to testify to one way in which the excellence of ash as fuel is plain: in the splitting. This was borne in on me a couple of years back when a fine, tall, forest-grown ash came down near our place, leaving me with a straight, nearly clear log more than a foot thick and 25 feet long. I cut into rounds for splitting and went to work. Never, in several decades of beating on hardwood chunks, have I had an easier time. The ash billets flew apart on a single stroke, often into three or four pieces. I split my ash chunks with an axe, but I believe I might have split them with a stern look.'