AMENTIFERJE. 147 



six years they grow rapidly till they have attained the age of thirty or forty years, 

 after which most of the species live and continue to increase in size for centuries. 

 The earliest histories that exist contain records of the oak. The gx'ove planted by 

 Abraham at Beersheba was of allun, which Hillier considers to have been Quercus 

 Esculus; and in Eusebius's "Life of Constantino" we find the oaks of Mamrc 

 expressly mentioned as a place where idolatry was committed by the Israelites close 

 to the tomb of Abraham. These, Dr. Hooker tells us, were fine specimens of 

 Q. Pseudo-coccifera. The first mention of the oak in the English version of the 

 Bible appears to be in Genesis xxxv. 8 : " But Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and 

 she was buried beneath Bethel, under an oak : and the name of it was called Ailon- 

 bachuth ;" or, as we have it in the margin, " the oak of weeping." Numerous other 

 instances of the mention of oaks occur in the Scriptures. We read of Absalom, 

 whose hair was caught by the " thick boughs of a great oak," and of Joshua, before his 

 death, taking a great stone, and setting it up there " under a great oak that was by 

 the sanctuary of the Lord," as a witness against the people, lest they should deny 

 God. Mr, Loudon wi'ites : " Among the Greeks, the Arcadians believed that the oak 

 was the first created of trees, and that they were the first people ;" but, according to 

 others, the oaks which produced the acorns first eaten by men grew on the banks of 

 Achelous. Pelasgus taught the Greeks to eat acorns, as well as to build huts. The 

 oak groves of Dodona in Epii'us formed the most celebrated and most ancient oracle 

 on record ; and Pliny states that the oaks in the Forest of Hercynia were believed to 

 be coeval with the world. Herodotus and numerous other Greek writers speak of 

 celebrated oaks ; and it was an oak that destroyed ^lilo of Crete. Pliny states that 

 oaks still existed at the tomb of Ilus, near Troy, which had been sown when that 

 city was first called Ilium." Socrates often swore by the oak ; and on Mount 

 Lycaeus, in Arcadia, there was a temple of Jupiter, with a fountain, into which the 

 priest threw an oak branch in times of drought, to produce rain. The Greeks had 

 two remarkable sayings relative to this tree, one of which was, " I speak to the oak," 

 as a solemn asseveration ; and the other, "Born of an oak," applied to a foundling; 

 because anciently children whose parents -vsdshed to get rid of them, were frequently 

 exposed in the hollow of an oak-tree. Frequent reference is made to the oak by old 

 writers, on account of the use made of the acorns in feeding pigs. The Romans used 

 acorns for this purpose. In Strabo's time Rome was chiefly supplied with hogs 

 which were fattened on the acorns in the woods of Gaul. Many laws were anciently 

 enacted with reference to acoms. The Romans expressly provided, that the owner 

 of a tree might gather up his acoms, though they should have fallen on another man's 

 ground. In Britain at one time the oak was prized chiefly on account of the acorns. 

 Woods of old were valued according to the number of hogs they could fatten, and so 

 rigidly were the forest lands surveyed, that in ancient records, such as the Doomsday 

 Book, woods are mentioned of a " single hog." The right of feeding swine in the 

 woods, called Pannage, formed, some few centuries ago, one of the most valuable 

 kinds of property. With this right monasteries were endowed, and it often con- 

 stituted the dowry of the daughters of the Saxon Kings. Evelyn states that a peck 

 of acoms a day, with a small quantity of bran, will make a hog increase a pound in 

 weight per day for two months together. Acorns, in times of scarcity, and in some 

 countries, have supplied valuable food for man as Avell as for beasts. Pliny tells us, 

 in his time, that they were ground, mixed with meal, and made into bread. He also 

 says, that in Spain acorns were bi'ought to table to eat. Spenser alludes to this in 

 these lines — 



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