Tree of the Month for October, 2008: Fraxinus americana - Part V
Part V: Uses & Silviculture
The white ash is one of the most economically important trees of the eastern states. As a timber tree, a component of urban forests, and an important part of the ecology of mature wild forests, it provides multiple, parallel benefits for both the human and inhuman portions of society at large.
Beginning with its use as lumber, F. americana wood has been rightly valued since colonial times, though I have heard little evidence that the American Indian peoples held it in any particular esteem. It is tough and strong, able to take great strains relative to its weight, but is also rather elastic, able to take shocks and easily bendable. Lastly, its clean, simple, figure and pale brown coloration give it an admirable beauty that is well suited for simple but elegant styles of furniture that seems never to go out of fashion.
Its unique mechanical properties listed above give it a number of specialized uses. The most famous of these, of course, is baseball bats. The world-famous Louisville Slugger has traditionally been made from white ash wood, and exclusively from white ash wood. Their website makes the claim - which I'm not sure is actually true, but is certainly close enough to the truth that no-one will mind their marketing department's making the claim - that "pound for pound, ash is the strongest timber available." As the sports fans out there (are there actually any of these in my audience? I'm not sure) may know, many professional league hitters are now abandoning white ash in favor of bats made out of sugar maple. The heavier maple wood allows them to put more "oomph" into their swings, giving them a greater chance of making crowd-pleasing and game-winning home runs. However, sugar maple has some serious disadvantages relative to white ash. First of all, it is more brittle than ash, lacking the bend and give which is one of white ash's chiefest advantages. Therefore, while their maple bats might have a tendency to hit the ball farther than their old ash bats did, they also have a tendency to, um, explode under the tremendous forces that a trained, muscular MLB player can inflict on it. Needless to say, this can be quite dangerous for all involved. Worse, it can lead to unnecessary strike outs!
In addition to this most famous of uses, F. americana timber is used in a variety of other goods. The same properties that render it so excellent for bats also make it an excellent choice for tool handles, although those that are going to be facing really nasty strains are typically made of the even harder and stronger (if also much heavier) wood of hickories. Also, many other sporting goods are made of ash wood, from canoe paddles to the hockey sticks. The flexibility of the wood also recommend it to craftsmen, as they can twist and curve it relatively easily into fanciful shapes. Its clean æsthetic no doubt encourages them, too. Lastly, Donald Culross Peattie claims that it is used in airplane parts, although in this era of cheap aluminum that particular use must be reduced to a specialty market.
Actually, white ash timber in general is a specialty market. Not that this means that it is not valuable, or not commonly used, but merely that those uses to which it is put are uses, not for wood in general, but for white ash wood in particular. It is too valued for its own particular properties to be sent into the great market for rough lumber or, worse yet, paper pulp. This has some nice advantages for the forest manager interested in growing a crop of white ashes. The first of these is that, where white ash is concerned, raw quantity is not terrifically important. Huge trees with many tens of feet of clear, branch free trunk are not absolutely required by the purchasers of ash wood, who mostly want it in relatively small, easily handled chunks. This, combined with its rapid growth rate, means that it can be harvested under relatively short rotations, perhaps every 30 to 50 years. For comparison, white pine, normally considered to be a fast-growing species good for repeated harvesting, requires 50 to 80 years for a stand to reach a mature size worthwhile for loggers, and long-lived oaks may require as much as 150 years! And, the really strong, flexible, useful white ash lumber makes up a greater percentage of the total wood in these smaller, younger trees than in their giant brethren of the wild forests. It should be noted that this fact means that there is simply no damn reason for cutting down the older ash trees growing in state parks and unharvested chunks of national forests. They really ought to be left alone to contribute to the general ecological and æsthetic value of these lands.
Speaking of ecological value - the white ash really does have many important contributions to make as a member of forest society. Its ability to rapidly fill in canopy gaps helps preserve the densely forested nature of the lands it inhabits, and helps to overtop and shade forest regions where, otherwise, nogoodnik invasive species would flourish. In this way, it helps preserve the sanctity and health of our forests. Also, it has importance for many wildlife species. The many small ashlings that coat the floors of mature woodlands provide an important piece of summer browse for deer and, where they occur, elk. The many, many, many seeds that a large white ash tree will put out are also eaten up by turkeys, woodcocks, squirrels, and a variety of other bird and small mammal species. And its leaves form an important part of the diet of the caterpillars of many species of butterflies and moths, sometimes to the point of being their only food source. It needs not be said the lovely butterflies that flit around in our bright, temperate eastern springs and summers are something that no self-respecting hippy, environmentalist, elementary school science teacher, or pretentious transcendentalist poet would willingly give up at any cost.
To move to the opposite extreme, the white ash is also a very important member of many urban forests. The Illinois Department of Agriculture, in a recent document on preparedness for the attacks of the Emerald Ash Borer, claims that around 20% of the street trees in the city of Chicago are ashes, mostly white ashes and green ashes (Fraxinus pennsylvanica). These trees increase greatly the beauty of the city, providing shade and greenery, and scrubbing clean the pollutants and CO2 from the air. I have noted before their loveliness walking down many an ash-lined street on the South Side of the city, 'round about the area of Bridgeport. As an example, the street that my good friend & reader Mr. M. R. Haase rents an apartment on is lined primarily by lovely spreading ashes which arch over the roadway like an elm canopy of old. Indeed, many of the ashes which grow in that broad-shouldered and manly city, as well as in others, were planted in the '60s and '70s as a replacement for the elms laid low by that vile fungus, the Dutch Elm Disease. Up here in Maine, old photographs and records show that areas of campus now planted in ashes (including the lovely ones next to the library pictured in the photograph in the introductory section) were, as recently as 1974, done up in American Elms. This makes the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer (to be covered in the next section I post, probably tomorrow) all the more tragic and poignant.
Becoming all the more tragic and poignant since 1986,
--mark
The white ash is one of the most economically important trees of the eastern states. As a timber tree, a component of urban forests, and an important part of the ecology of mature wild forests, it provides multiple, parallel benefits for both the human and inhuman portions of society at large.
Beginning with its use as lumber, F. americana wood has been rightly valued since colonial times, though I have heard little evidence that the American Indian peoples held it in any particular esteem. It is tough and strong, able to take great strains relative to its weight, but is also rather elastic, able to take shocks and easily bendable. Lastly, its clean, simple, figure and pale brown coloration give it an admirable beauty that is well suited for simple but elegant styles of furniture that seems never to go out of fashion.
Its unique mechanical properties listed above give it a number of specialized uses. The most famous of these, of course, is baseball bats. The world-famous Louisville Slugger has traditionally been made from white ash wood, and exclusively from white ash wood. Their website makes the claim - which I'm not sure is actually true, but is certainly close enough to the truth that no-one will mind their marketing department's making the claim - that "pound for pound, ash is the strongest timber available." As the sports fans out there (are there actually any of these in my audience? I'm not sure) may know, many professional league hitters are now abandoning white ash in favor of bats made out of sugar maple. The heavier maple wood allows them to put more "oomph" into their swings, giving them a greater chance of making crowd-pleasing and game-winning home runs. However, sugar maple has some serious disadvantages relative to white ash. First of all, it is more brittle than ash, lacking the bend and give which is one of white ash's chiefest advantages. Therefore, while their maple bats might have a tendency to hit the ball farther than their old ash bats did, they also have a tendency to, um, explode under the tremendous forces that a trained, muscular MLB player can inflict on it. Needless to say, this can be quite dangerous for all involved. Worse, it can lead to unnecessary strike outs!
In addition to this most famous of uses, F. americana timber is used in a variety of other goods. The same properties that render it so excellent for bats also make it an excellent choice for tool handles, although those that are going to be facing really nasty strains are typically made of the even harder and stronger (if also much heavier) wood of hickories. Also, many other sporting goods are made of ash wood, from canoe paddles to the hockey sticks. The flexibility of the wood also recommend it to craftsmen, as they can twist and curve it relatively easily into fanciful shapes. Its clean æsthetic no doubt encourages them, too. Lastly, Donald Culross Peattie claims that it is used in airplane parts, although in this era of cheap aluminum that particular use must be reduced to a specialty market.
Actually, white ash timber in general is a specialty market. Not that this means that it is not valuable, or not commonly used, but merely that those uses to which it is put are uses, not for wood in general, but for white ash wood in particular. It is too valued for its own particular properties to be sent into the great market for rough lumber or, worse yet, paper pulp. This has some nice advantages for the forest manager interested in growing a crop of white ashes. The first of these is that, where white ash is concerned, raw quantity is not terrifically important. Huge trees with many tens of feet of clear, branch free trunk are not absolutely required by the purchasers of ash wood, who mostly want it in relatively small, easily handled chunks. This, combined with its rapid growth rate, means that it can be harvested under relatively short rotations, perhaps every 30 to 50 years. For comparison, white pine, normally considered to be a fast-growing species good for repeated harvesting, requires 50 to 80 years for a stand to reach a mature size worthwhile for loggers, and long-lived oaks may require as much as 150 years! And, the really strong, flexible, useful white ash lumber makes up a greater percentage of the total wood in these smaller, younger trees than in their giant brethren of the wild forests. It should be noted that this fact means that there is simply no damn reason for cutting down the older ash trees growing in state parks and unharvested chunks of national forests. They really ought to be left alone to contribute to the general ecological and æsthetic value of these lands.
Speaking of ecological value - the white ash really does have many important contributions to make as a member of forest society. Its ability to rapidly fill in canopy gaps helps preserve the densely forested nature of the lands it inhabits, and helps to overtop and shade forest regions where, otherwise, nogoodnik invasive species would flourish. In this way, it helps preserve the sanctity and health of our forests. Also, it has importance for many wildlife species. The many small ashlings that coat the floors of mature woodlands provide an important piece of summer browse for deer and, where they occur, elk. The many, many, many seeds that a large white ash tree will put out are also eaten up by turkeys, woodcocks, squirrels, and a variety of other bird and small mammal species. And its leaves form an important part of the diet of the caterpillars of many species of butterflies and moths, sometimes to the point of being their only food source. It needs not be said the lovely butterflies that flit around in our bright, temperate eastern springs and summers are something that no self-respecting hippy, environmentalist, elementary school science teacher, or pretentious transcendentalist poet would willingly give up at any cost.
To move to the opposite extreme, the white ash is also a very important member of many urban forests. The Illinois Department of Agriculture, in a recent document on preparedness for the attacks of the Emerald Ash Borer, claims that around 20% of the street trees in the city of Chicago are ashes, mostly white ashes and green ashes (Fraxinus pennsylvanica). These trees increase greatly the beauty of the city, providing shade and greenery, and scrubbing clean the pollutants and CO2 from the air. I have noted before their loveliness walking down many an ash-lined street on the South Side of the city, 'round about the area of Bridgeport. As an example, the street that my good friend & reader Mr. M. R. Haase rents an apartment on is lined primarily by lovely spreading ashes which arch over the roadway like an elm canopy of old. Indeed, many of the ashes which grow in that broad-shouldered and manly city, as well as in others, were planted in the '60s and '70s as a replacement for the elms laid low by that vile fungus, the Dutch Elm Disease. Up here in Maine, old photographs and records show that areas of campus now planted in ashes (including the lovely ones next to the library pictured in the photograph in the introductory section) were, as recently as 1974, done up in American Elms. This makes the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer (to be covered in the next section I post, probably tomorrow) all the more tragic and poignant.
Becoming all the more tragic and poignant since 1986,
--mark