CHAP. CV.

COItYLACEiE. QUE'RCUS.

1807

no large oaks were bitten off for two years afterwards. From this relation ofwhat occurred in a place where mice were so abundant, it does not appear tous that any general conclusion can be drawn against the use of acorns insteadof plants; because, according to the same writer, the mice were equally effec-tive in gnawing through trees 6 ft. or 8 ft. high, which, by a parity of reasoning,would afford an argument against the use of oak plants. The relation, however,is of great importance, as showing the numerous natural enemies of the seeds oftrees, and also of young trees, which the cultivator requires to guard against.As neither the mice nor the other vermin mentioned are peculiar to the oaktree, we shall not here enter on the different modes of deterring vermin frominjuring trees, or of destroying them, but refer our readers to this subject inthe Encyclopaedia of Arboriculture.

Pruning and Training. The common oak, in the nursery, will not bear severepruning; nor is this of much use with a view to training the plant to a singlestem, because, in almost every case of transplanting the oak to where it is finallyto remain, it is found to make the clearest stem, and the most rapid progress,by cutting it down to the ground after it has been some years established. Inplantations, or in single rows, the oak, even when a considerable tree, doesnot bear pruning and lopping so readily as the elm; but still it may be trainedto a single stem, which should be of considerable height when the object is toproduce plank timber; but short, when the object is to throw strength intothe head, in order to produce crooked pieces for ship-building. These crookedpieces for ship timber are generally the result of accident; but there seemsto be no reason why trees should not be trained by art to produce crookedstems, as well as straight ones. We are informed that, in the governmentplantations, in the Forest of Dean, there are some hundreds of acres of plantedoaks, which have never been pruned in the slightest degree, that have per-fectly clear trunks from 50 ft. to 60 ft. in height. These trees were plantedthick, towards the end of the last century, and were gradually thinned out,as they advanced in size; and their side branches have died off, beingsuffocated by the surrounding trees. We shall notice here the modes whichhave been adopted or recommended for producing crooked, or what is calledknee, timber, in the case of the oak; and, in our chapter on training trees ge-nerally, in our Encyclopaedia of Arboriculture, we shall go into details.

Training the Oak for crooked, or Knee, Timber. Various schemes ,of trainingand pruning the oak, so as to produce crooked limbs of large dimensions, havebeen proposed by Marshall, Pontey, Billington, Matthew, and other writers.South, in the Bath Society’s Papers, thus accounts for the production ofcrooked timber by natural means : — “ Trees,” he says, “ dispersed over opencommons and extensive wastes, have hitherto produced the choicest timber.”Whoever traverses a woody waste, “ with the eye of curiosity awake, mustremark that almost every thorn becomes a nurse for a timber tree. Acorns,or beech mast, or sometimes both, dropped by birds or squirrels, vegetatefreely under the shade and protection of the bushes, till they rise above thebite of cattle. Small groups and single trees are thus produced; their guar-dian thorns, when overpowered, perishing. Then the timber trees havingopen space for their roots to range in, their growth becomes rapid, their bodiesbulky, their limbs large and extensive; cattle resort to them for shelter, enrichthe ground with their droppings; and the timber, deriving advantage from themanure, becomes productive of knees, crooks, and compass pieces, the chiefrequisites in naval architecture.” The French, this writer observes, haveendeavoured to form kneed timber artificially, “ by suspending weights to theheads of tender saplings, bowing them hastily to the ground; which is not onlyan expensive, but an inefficacious method; for it injures the plant, by strainingthe bark and rupturing the sap-vessels.” ( Bath Soc. Papers, vol. vi. p. 54.)Preferring the natural method of producing crooked timber, Mr. South con-tinues,—“ Parks and pleasure-grounds might be rendered enchantingly beautifulby being planted with clumps of quicksets, black thorns, hollies, <kc., inter-spersed here and there, for the protection of acorns purposed to be sown

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