Logs to Burn
CONSIDERING firewood—a very proper thing to consider, being seasonal, and also because its value in enchantment seems to be increased yearly as the dominion of the gas-fire grows all around—I would suggest that the best firewood of all, though the old "Logs to Burn " rhyme does not mention it, is oak driftwood ; old oak that has been salved from the sea-shore, left to dry grey, and put on the fire in logs as fat as they possibly can be. What a fire then for bitter nights For driftwood burns slowly, with a glowing, scorching heat, no splutter and little smoke, and all the time over the big log there will be playing blue and green rippling tongues of flame that are in themselves an entertainment. It would not be easy to beat that with any fuel : the only trouble being that unless one lives close by the sea, and, moreover, is prepared to expend time and energy on outwitting other beachcombers bent also on making something from the storm, driftwood is hard to come by. Little of it, nowadays, is likely to be oak anyhow : so that, no doubt, it is just as well that it should be left out of the Rhymer's list. The best wood, according to him, is ash, of which he says :
" But ash logs, all smooth and grey; Burn them green or old : Buy up all that come your way, • They're worth their weight in gold.
It is true that ash burns very well, that " ash when green is fit for a queen " ; but personally, priding myself on being something of a connoisseur of firewood (which I am sure no queen ever was) I know of half a dozen woods I would rather burn, not necessarily because they burn better, but because they arc producers of a magic which ash lacks. Oak driftwood transcends all woods because, not only does it burn as well as any, but it brings the colours of the rainbow on to the hearth. Ash does not, and in addition it has little or no scent : so what is it but a mere competent and pleasant enough heat-producer ?
On the other hand, as the rhyme says :— " Pear logs and apple logs, They will scent your room : Cherry logs across the dogs Smell like flowers in bloom."
Larch also, and some kinds of fir, as well as crab apple and beech, will scent a room deliciously, and for that reason I would put them above ash : especially crab- apple and beech, crab apple even for sheer intensity of heat being a finer firewood than ash ; and beech—though I have grown rather contemptuous of it lately through familiarity—having the peculiar quality of being able to set free, as it burns, all the fresh, damp, aromatic odours of the woods in autumn. Sometimes, too, beech will ripple with random blues and greens, and then it is a wood to be reverenced, as possessing the three qualities that make a perfect firewood. But at other times beech burns sulkily and wants so much coaxing that the price of it—and the wood-merchants do not appear to think of ash alone as worth its weight in gold—seems a scandal and an insult to the whole tradition of the roaring winter fire. It is of first impor- tance that there should be a certain amount of crackling and fierce blazing ; and if beech will not do that it is poor stuff, probably diseased. One of the best antidotes for such sullen wood is birch, which burns fast and hot, with a brilliant flame.
But any logs, indeed, with the exception of elm (it is agreed by all authorities that elm is intolerable, though I have never tried it) and possibly sycamore and lime of the commoner trees—any logs to burn are better, surely, than no logs. Give me hawthorn, holly, maple pine—and, of course, pine-cones : a whole basketful of big, hard, dry cones, that will crackle and glow--- and I will stoke up a finer fire for windy and chilly nights than coal alone could ever provide. The small woods will come first, to splutter and make a cheerful light• and sound : larch twigs and holly branches that " burn like wax " : then the enormous log, say a section of pear- tree trunk, that will need no attention and just burn away with its constant glow and scent, until, with a few knocks from the poker, it is ready to disintegrate into embers : then—but the only important thing is that there should be embers at the end of all : soft, flaky, alternating between grey and crimson, in a great glowing heap, embers fit for sitting over with no other
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