The timber of hawthorn possesses more merit than is usually assigned to it; in fact, there cannot be said that there is any market for it, owing, probably, to the rough state in which it is almost invariably grown. But it is hard and heavy, with a fine grain, taking a good polish. Some of the wood-cuts in back numbers of the _Gardeners' Chronicle_ were engraved on hawthorn; but Mr. Elwes, who has experimented practically with every British wood, considers that boxwood is of superior texture.
In the good times of old, when men strove more earnestly to cut each other's throats than, as at the present day, to catch each other's votes, every Highland clan has a distinctive badge consisting of a sprig of some common plant whereby friend might be known from foe. The small sept of Ogilvie chose the hawthorn.
No tree or plant has lent its name more freely to denominate places. The Norsemen are responsible for _Thorn-ey_ on the left bank of the tidal Thames, to which the Saxons, forgetting that _ey_ is good Norse for "island," extended the name pleonastically to Thorney Island, and then came Edward the Confessor to obliterate both names by building on the island the abbey and church--the West Minster.
Countless are the places called Thornton, Thornhill, Thornbury, etc., in England, all named from the hawthorn--the thorn of thorns; while in Scotland, besides romantic Hawthornden, and in Ireland, the Gaelic word _sceach_ or _scitheog_ (_th_ silent) occurs in almost every parish in some form or other--Skeog, Skeagh, Skate, Drumskeog, Tullynaskeagh, etc.
A foreign relative of the hawthorn may be mentioned here as being more worthy of consideration as a timber tree, and, besides, being exceedingly ornamental, namely, _Cotoneaster frigida_. Most people are familiar with the genus _Cotoneaster_ in the form of shrubs of modest stature, producing quantities of red berries; and in gardener's dictionaries, etc., one reads that this Himalayan species grows about 10 feet high. If it did no more than that, it would be well worth planting for the sake of its woolly cymes of white flowers in July and the extraordinary profusion of scarlet berries which follows them; yet, even so, it could not claim notice among forest trees. In fact, it promises to outstrip the hawthorn in height. Some of mine have reached a height of 40 feet already, at an age of fifty years, and if care is bestowed on timely pruning in youth, the wood is straight, clean and very hard. It has not yet been put to any economic use, so far as known to me, but I have a notion it will prove fine material for the heads of golf clubs.