FORESTRY OX THE COUNTRY ESTATE 



453 



ance in summer and go direct to brown 

 in autumn. The acorns are large and 

 three-quarters enclosed by a deep cut, 

 with a fringe around the top. An inter- 

 esting member of the family, and one 

 or two of them at least should find a 

 place in your ravines, grown from the 

 acorn as they are difficult to trau'^- 

 plant. 



On your high and dry ridges, prefer- 

 ably sandy base soil, you have the star 

 locality for the fifth of the white oak- 

 cousins, the chestnut oak. — rather far 



Fig. 56— Sw«mp White 0»k. (Q. blcolor. Willd.) 



removed as it verges closely on the 

 chestnut itself in its characteristics, but 

 is one of the first-year acorn group, 

 with wood of the same characteristics 

 as the rest of the family. There are 

 two species, the rock chestnut, a rather 

 small tree with huge glossy dark green 

 leaves reaching fourteen inches in 

 length and huge oval acorns and the 

 scrul) chestnut oak. of lighter bark and 

 smaller leaf and acorn, though with us 

 i-j grows to very large size on sand base, 

 its preferred soil. The rock chestnut 

 does best on a clay base, and very well 

 on limestone and granite. It is not at 



all tolerant of shade, and its big leaves 

 enable it to fight vigorously for light, 

 supi^ressing anything else growing near 

 it and making the most of its trim eco- 

 nomical space. This tree only occurs 

 in the eastern part of our area, seldom 

 west of Ohio, j)robably due to its in- 

 sistence on hill sides for growing room. 

 I do not see it offered in many nursery- 

 men's catalogues, yet it is one of the 

 easiest transplanted of the oaks and 

 should make a good summer feature 

 for landscape work. It goes right to 

 brown in the fall, and its leaves are 

 soon down, so I should hardly care to 

 spend money upon it when there are so 



Fie- 53— While 0«i. (Q. »lba. L.) 



many more ornamental trees for year- 

 round beauty that need room. 



As to the dressed appearance of the 

 woods of these five oaks, it would al- 

 most take an expert mill man to tell the 

 species apart. Chestnut, burr, post, and 

 white, all show a flower in the quarter- 

 ing, the post oak flower being in narrow 

 l)arallel lines while the others are wavy 

 and irregular. Swamp white has no 

 flower at all in the ((uarter grain. Look- 

 ing at the end of the log, the colors vary 

 from light heart wood in burr, post, and 

 white, to dark in chestnut and swamp 

 white. Planed lengthwise of the grain. 



