ARBORICULTURAL NOTICES. — NO. III. 



In the hope that these notices may he the humble means of calling; attention to 

 many of our beautiful but neglected trees, I shall occasionally lay aside the rule I 

 adopted at the commencement, — namely, to describe only those fine specimens 

 growing in my immediate neighborhood. In the present instance, I have been so 

 impressed with the injustice which our White Oak suffers from planters of 

 ornamental trees, who very rarely indeed include it in their lists of "desirables" 

 which they occasionally hand to their nurserymen, that I have taken for the sub- 

 ject of this sketch one in the grounds of Springbrook, near Holniesburg, Pa. ; the 

 Country Seat of Caleb Cope, Esq., which contains one of the handsomest 

 specimens I have seen. It is not in its height (seventy-two feet), that it excels, for 

 I have seen taller ; nor in its circumference at four feet from the ground (twelve 

 feet) for there are occasionally some of greater dimensions met with; but as a 

 vigorous, healthy, symmetrical, and withal a very large tree, it has few superiors. 

 It has a very broad base (see sketch), measuring near the ground line thirty feet; 

 which adds materially to its grandeur and majesty. Its healthy vigor is no doubt 

 owing in great part, to its favorable situation. Located in the hollow formed 

 by two gentle slopes, and below the level of a near turnpike road, the washings 

 after heavy rains assist in affording nourishment just suited to it. The "White Oak 

 is getting so scarce in its native localities, that our posterity will speak of it as we 

 do of the Mastodon, and other famed lords of the animal kingdom which once 

 existed on this curious world, unless our planters pay more attention to it. Long ago 

 MiCHAUD wrote of it — "I must be allowed to hazard a conjecture on the conse- 

 quences of the neglect of all means of preserving this tree in the United States ; 

 consequences which neither the Federal government nor the States, take any 

 measures to prevent. From the increase of population and from the impoverish- 

 ment of the soil, produced by a gradual change in the climate, the White Oak will 

 — probably in less than fifty years — be most rare in the Middle States, where it is 

 now most abundant, and in Tennessee, Kentucky, Genesee, and further North, 

 where it is the least multiplied, it will be the most common, and will replace the 

 species which now compose the forest, but which the soil will then be too feeble to 

 maintain. " When by the apathy and neglect of our planters, the White Oak shall 

 have been lost to us, our descendants will thank the ''Horticulturist" for preserving 

 to them at least a sketch of this beautiful and noble tree. 



Springbrook is comparatively a new place, having been made what it is quite 

 recently, and by the present public spirited proprietor. Little more than seven 



