I 784
ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.
FART III.
soil for the oak, by deeply trenching it, by planting acorns, and not plants;and by keeping them pruned till they arrive at a proper height, double thequantity of timber may be obtained in about 50 years, that is now producedin 100. Mr. Yates’s mode of cultivation (for an account of which he receiveda premium from the Society of Arts) will be found in a succeeding paragraph.(See Gent. Mag., vol. lxxiv., for 1804, p. 626.)
The following table of the progressive growth of nine oaks in the NewForest, was communicated by T. Davies, Esq., of Portway House, Wiltshire :—
The circumference taken ininches at 6 ft. from the ground.
5 Trees planted120 years.
4 Trees planted,60 years.
1814.
1816.
1818.
1820.
1822
No. 1.
571
58*
58|
B9J
S9J "
No. 2.
65*
66*
66f
67i
68J
No. 3.
m
85
8S|
86i
87|
No. 4.
41
42*
424
m
43f
No. 5.
61
62*
63
6S«
67|
Aggregate 307| 326§
'No. 6.
28*
30*
32
33 1
35§
No. 7.
m
28*
29f
29f
32
'No. 8.
28*
29§
30*
31*
32§
.No. 9.
33*
34|
351
37*
39
Aggregate 117| 138f
j Average increase in 8 years, Z% in. per
1 tree in circumference,
I Increase of timber in I2ft in lengthj of trunk, 1 ft. 9 in.
Average increase in 8 years, 5 1 in. pertree in circumference.
Increase of timber in 12 ft. in lengthof trunk, X ft. 7 in.
Relative Growth of Oak Wood, as compared with that of other Trees. The resultof observations by Vancouver in Hampshire , as to the relative growth of woodin that county, was, taking the trees at 10 years’ growth, and fixing the oakas a standard, as follows : — Oak, 10; elm, 16 ; ash, 18 ; beech, 20 ; whitepoplar (P. alba), 30. It will thus appear, that the oak, which is the slowest-growing forest tree indigenous to Britain , increases only at the rate of onethird part of the white poplar, which is the most rapid-growing indigenousforest tree in Britain .
The growth of the oak, as compared with that of the larch, is exemplifiedin a tree of each growing at Wimbush, in Essex. In 1792, the oak, which iscalled Young’s Oak, at 5 ft. from the ground, was 8 ft. 5f in. in girt; and alarch, at the same place, only 12 years old, at the same height from the ground,girted 2 ft. 4 in. In 1805, 13 years afterwards, the oak bad increased only4Jin. in girt, while the larch had increased 2 ft. 9 in. (Young’s Essex, u.p. 151.)
Poetical Allusions. The most celebrated poetical description of the oak,as well as, perhaps, one of the oldest, is that of Virgil in the second Georgic ,which has been thus rendered by Dryden : —
That holds the woods in awful sovereignty,
Requires a depth of lodging in the ground,
And, next the lower skies, a bed profound.
High as his topmost boughs to heaven ascend,
So low his roots to hell’s dominion tend ;
Therefore nor winds, nor winter’s rage, o’erthrowsHis bulky body, but unmoved he grows.
For length of ages lasts his happy reign,
And lives of mortal men contend in vain.
Full in the midst of his own strength he stands,
Stretching his brawny arms, and leafy hands:
His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands.”
The following lines are from the JEneid: —
‘ e As when the winds their airy quarrel try,
Jostling from every quarter of the sky,
This way and that, the mountain oak they bend,
His boughs they shatter, and his branches rend jWith leaves and falling mast they spread the ground;
The hollow valleys echo to the sound :
Unmoved the royal plant their fury mocks,
Or, shaken, clings more closely to the rocks;
For as he shoots his towering head on high,
So deep in earth his fixed foundations lie.”
Vrsoil.. Mn., Dryden's train.