WHEN frost and snow and fog descend on our world
the household fire rises in value ; but it has other qualities than just warmth. Very few subjects, always excepting the weather, have had a greater attraction for writers of rural doggerel. The trouble is that the verdict is traditional rather than inchvidual. " Ash " is usually the queen—a fact that should have pleased Cobbett—and elm the villain—with oak and beech as runners-up, with the proviso that they be well-kept. A popular version assessing various woods concludes with a verse only recently made known to me.
"Apple wood will scent your room With an incense-like perfume, But ash wet or ash dry For a Queen to warm her slippers by."
As to my own experience, I have never known such a pleasant perfume about a room as once when I burnt some old lilac wood. Laburnum, even green, burns like a candle, and green thorn flames hotly. All fruit trees burn well. My wonder is the general belittlement of elm. If the heat can reach the heartwood, as it can in well-split logs, old elm gives one of the hottest and loveliest fires. I have been burning even roots six inches in diameter with good results.
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