Our American beech (_F. ferruginea_) is a widely distributed tree, extending from Nova Scotia in the north, south to Florida, and westward to Wisconsin and Missouri. Formerly it was exceedingly abundant, but like many other of our most valuable forest trees, it is disappearing before the axe of the woodman, who has always found a ready sale for beech timber. It is used in the manufacture of plane stocks, shoe lasts, handles for paring chisels, and hundreds of similar articles. Beech wood is hard, firm, and takes a good polish, but is not very flexible. It makes excellent fuel, and ranks next in value to hard maple and hickory for this purpose. In the more northern States and where the beech grows to its largest size, the heartwood is usually of a reddish color; but here in New Jersey and farther south, the wood is usually white almost to the center of the tree, no matter how large it may be. The color of the wood, however, does not in any way detract from its value, for fuel and many other purposes, although some European dendrologists have been deceived into supposing that the white beech was almost or quite worthless. Loudon, in _Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum_, Vol. III, in referring to our beech, says: "The wood of the white beech is little valued in America, even for fuel; and the bark is used for tanning, but is little esteemed," etc. But if any one, in these later years, has had occasion to purchase beech timber for any purpose, he has probably learned, from the price charged, that it is esteemed, even for such base purposes as firewood. I am not, however, attempting to extol the American beech as a timber tree, but ask that it be given a place among the select ornamental nut-bearing kinds. And I think every farmer who has a pasture lot could afford a place for at least one beech tree, and if there is a low, moist spot in the field, or a stony corner, this will be a suitable place for such a tree; and the horses, cattle or sheep out in pasture during hot days in summer will be very grateful for the shade which a wide-spreading specimen will give them. It may be that the owner of said pasture may recall the lines of Garcilaso: "But in calm idlesse laid, Supine in the cool shade Of oak or ilex, beech or pendant pine, Sees his flocks feeding stray, Whitening a length of way, Or numbers up his homeward-tending kine." He may be sure of one thing, and that is, the beech-nuts produced by one or many trees will always be acceptable to the children, and of these hungry mortals there is likely to be a few, at least, roaming about in ages to come, as in times past.