Log Fire
In view, perhaps, of possible difficulties about coal, one or two cor- respondents have asked me to include here a note about woods for burning. The log fire is a romantic thing, but, I think, over-rated, and probably uneconomic; it can never compare for heat and qualities of endurance, as well as beauty, with the combined fire of wood and coal. There is, however, no wood like oak. From the tree-heart it burns like a torch, with fierce blue-white fringes of flame; ten years after cutting, heat brings out a steady sizzle of sap that is a delight. Next to it I should put beech, steady and crimson, and ash, a wood of bright candle-splendour, good when green, kindling a little sere. Elm is maligned, and yet in reality is excellent when long- seasoned, a process for which ten years in the barn is not too much. Light woods, from quick-growing trees, willow, poplar, birch, and so on, have no endurance, and when green are fussy, needing a feed of coal. All pine and fir is dangerous ; sparkling, vitriolic stuff, fatal to leave unattended. Sweet chestnut is also a sparkler, but there is hardly a better wood, white as bone, for kindling. Among really bad woods I should put horse-chestnut : hard, leaden, covering itself in store with a sour bloom of Stilton-green mould, and with it most fruit-woods when green. The prettiest wood, but an average burner, is alder; a heart as orange as a marigold. One word of warning to new country dwellers : the gentleman with the black neck-muffler, the io-cwt. Ford down on the axles, and the load of sawn logs knows more about the game than you do. His first quotation is, like the carpet-sellers, simply a reconnaisance-flight of hope. Offer him a third, even a quarter, and he will rush to the driving-seat and make wild efforts to drive out of your sight. Walk away, and he will run after you, shouting cut-price bargains. Entrench yourself behind a concrete wall of determination, and you will buy at some- thing like the correct valuation, and earn his respect in the bargain. And finally look at the wood. Infallibly it purports to be oak— and rarely is.
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