188 ON THE DECREASE OF THE OAK IN BRITAIN. 



ties of all manner of esculent roots, stems, leaves, and fruits, it would be passing 

 strange if their culture could do nothing for an Oak tree but make it mere worth- 

 less timber. If all the earth were given to man for improvement, and he had 

 improved much of it — as he actually has done — it would be a perfect anomaly if 

 timber, which is so very useful, should be the single article on which he could 

 not lay his hand of culture without doing it an injury. It is impossible to be- 

 lieve that such an anomaly can exist in nature ; and, therefore, the only way is 

 to catechise the man who makes the attempt ; and, if he does not understand 

 what he is doing, send him back to Nature to inform himself as to what he should 

 do." — Mudie. 



The real state of the case, then, is this. Those who do plant Oak, generally 

 do so not for the purpose of forming timber, but for ornament, and those few (if 

 any) who plant for posterity, have not hit on the right method of doing so. 



" We have difficulty in keeping the cultivated plants ' rooted in,' and we 

 have as much in getting the wild ones rooted out. A very little observation of 

 Nature, and a few very simple reflections on that observation, might have shown 

 us that that must have been the case ; and had we taken that trouble, and very 

 small trouble it is, we should never have gone about to cultivate timber in one 

 plant by the very process whereby we destroy timber in all other plants. Yet 

 we have done, and we continue to do that, for, grafting excepted, we breed Oaks 

 and Peaches in the same ground, and much after the same manner." — Mudie. 



In the first place, the acorns are not sown in the spot where the trees are to 

 remain. They are obtained by nurserymen, who buy them wholesale without any 

 regard to their quality, and it is probable, as in almost all plants, that " the 

 worst kinds of oak are the most prolific of acorns." The nurserymen, without 

 attending to Nature, sow them deep in the ground, and within a few inches of 

 each other, and the consequence is, that these acorns, originally bad, produce 

 still worse plants, which, from their crowded state, are stinted in their necessary 

 nourishment.* After remaining in this state for some years, they are trans- 

 planted to their final destination, a process which, it is needless to add, is ex- 

 tremely injurious, however carefully performed ; and, in most cases, the space 

 allowed there for their growth is scarcely better than that in the nursery-bed. In 

 short, " the object of the grower has been to get goodly trees — trees that please 

 the eye, without any regard to the quality of the timber ; and the object of the 

 nurseryman has beefc to rear up his seedlings, and get them to market as soon, 

 and in as showy a condition as possible." 



* Man comes in with his nursery-bed ; and though he cannot be said to overstock the country, for 

 there can hardly be too many trees (and there are numerous and wide wastes in England, where it 

 is disgraceful there arc not millions) ; yet the nursery-bed is overstocked, and the consequence is the 

 dry-rot in Oak, and general rottenness and want of strength in all timber." — Mi'DiE. 



