1746

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

1587

dally along the Torridge, from Torrington toBideford; and about Clovelly. In those partsis a variety with the leaf of a very large size(see Jig. 1574. in p. 1738.); and I recollecta tree in Clovelly Park with all the leaves oddlyrecurved at the edges, so as to have a convexdisk. I recollect, also, some very ancient pol-lards, with, leaves of great size, near Inver-castlie, on the Ross-shire side of Strath Oikell.

I think the species is common in Scotland . Ipresume an oak with a long, narrow, raggedleaf, which I happen to have seen only at Chep-stow Castle, where there are several trees, pro-bably all planted, and where it is called Maidenoak, is a var. of Q. sessiliflora.” (W. B. Jan.

1837.) Mr. Bree says that in some parts ofNorth Wales , and in the neighbourhood of thelakes in the north of England, Q. sessiliflora isthe more prevailing kind of oak ; constituting,as it were, the staple growth of the country, almost to the exclusion ofQ. pedunculata. Great part of the Forest of Ardennes, in Warwickshire ,he says, consists almost entirely of Q, sessiliflora, of which there arespecimens which exhibit marks of great antiquity. (Grard. Mag., vol. xii.p. 572.) Q. sessiliflora is said by Bose to be the more abundant speciesin the forests in the neighbourhood of Paris , where it forms a lower andmore spreading tree than Q. pedunculata; which, however, is said to bethe more common oak of France. In Germany , if we may judge from thename for Q. sessiliflora, gemeine eiche, it would appear to be the more com-mon ; and we are informed by German gardeners that this is the case. Wehave seen both sorts in the Black Forest , in the neighbourhood of Donaues-chingen. Mr. Atkinson states that he received acorns of three varieties ofoaks from a botanist who collected them in the Black Forest ; and that hehad, in 1833, plants of them 6 ft. high, which did not exhibit any differencefrom Q. pedunculata and Q. sessiliflora. The oak is never found of anysize except in deep loamy soil; and in a low, or only moderately elevated,situation. It never grows in marshy soil. In gravelly or sandy soil, or inshallow soil on rock, it forms a small stunted tree, and on mountains ashrub. In England, it is found on soils superincumbent on chalk, sandstone,and limestone; thriving equally well on each, according to the depth and qualityof the surface soil. In Scotland , it is found in the clefts of granite rocks,basalt, sandstone, and every other description of native rock, where the souover it is of any depth, and not saturated with water. In Germany , it hasbeen observed by Willdenow that Q. pedunculata requires rather better soilthan Q. sessiliflora.

History. The earliest notices which we have of the oak in Britain are inthe Saxon Chronicles, from which it appears that oak forests were chiefly valuedfor the acorns which they produced, which were generally consumed by swineandother domestic animals,but, in years of great scarcity, were eaten by man. ‘ ra-mines,” Burnet observes, “ which of old so continually occurred, history m partattributes to the failure of these crops. Long after the introduction of wneaand oats and rye, nay, little more than 700 years since, when other food hain a great measure superseded the use of mast, considerable reliance was splaced thereon, and oaks were chiefly valued for the acorns they produceIn the Saxon Chronicles, that year of terrible dearth and mortality, e "

scribed as ‘ a very heavy-timed, vexatious, and destructive year,’ and the lai urof the mast in that season is particularly recorded: — ‘ This year, also, wso deficient in mast, that there never was heard such in all this land,in Wales .” ( Amcen. Quer., fol. 1.) About the end of the seventh cen u J>King Ina, among the few laws which he enacted to regulate the simp