CHAP. CV. CORYLA‘CEA. QUE’RCUS. 1805 
\ 
taproot gives the plant new vigour, and enables it, after a few years, to exceed 
in growth the native tree. And, 3dly, That large oak trees, whether native 
or transplanted, do, long before they become fit for naval purposes (I may 
say before they are proper for carpenter’s uses), lose their taproots altogether. 
In short, I would contend that all small oak trees have taproots, and all large 
oaks have no taproots. I must, of course, be understood to speak in general 
terms.” (Bath Soc, Papers, vol. xv. p. 51.) 
Sowing the Acorns where the Plants are finally to remain. Several writers 
recommend sowing acorns broadcast, and along with them hazel nuts, haws, 
&e., and allowing the whole to grow up together. The undergrowths, in 
this case, shelter the young oaks during the requisite period; after which they 
cease to increase in height, and are by degrees gradually choked and destroyed 
by the shade of the oaks. This, however, is merely growing oaks among 
weeds of a larger and more permanent kind, and cannot be recommended as a 
scientific mode of raising oak woods, or woods of any other kind; though it 
may be advisable to resort to it under circumstances where plantations of any 
kind are better than none, and where there ‘may be capital enough for pro- 
curing the seeds, and committing them to the soil, though not enough for doing 
so in a proper manner. This mode was also recommended by Sir Uvedale 
Price, because, if no more oaks were sown than can stand on the ground as 
full-grown trees, no thinning or future care of the plantation will ever be re- 
quired by the planter. With a view to picturesque effect, such a mode is 
judicious; but it is not so when either rapid growth or profit is the main 
object. 
Nichols, writing in 1793, says he finds by experience that bushes of white 
and black thorns, holly, and brambles, are the best nurses and protectors of 
young timber trees, especially oaks. He, therefore, invented a dibble, which 
will be found described in the Encyclopedia of Arboriculture, in the chapter 
on implements for dibbling acorns and other seeds into the heart of bushes, 
and among underwood. He planted many acorns with this instrument, he 
says, with the greatest success; and he strongly recommends this mode as 
hae any other for raising oak woods in the New Forest. (Methods, &c., 
p. 64. 
Marshall gives directions for raising oak woods; “ oak,” as he justly observes, 
“ being the only tree admissible in a wood, because no other tree will allow 
copse to grow under it on land sufficiently sound and sufficiently level to 
be cultivated conveniently with the common plough.” (Planting and Rur. 
Or., 2d ed., p. 128.) He prepares the ground by a naked or a turnip fallow, 
as for wheat. At the proper season, he sows over the whole surface of the 
future wood with corn or pulse broadcast, but rather thinner than usual. The 
acorns he sows in drills across the lands, with intervening drills of temporary 
trees and shrubs, to be removed as they advance in size, so as ultimately to 
leave the oak trees 33 ft. apart every way. The details of this mode, being 
applicable to the chestnut and other trees, as well as the oak, will be given in 
the Encyclopedia of Arboriculture. 
To raise a grove of oaks, Marshall proposes to sow drills of acorns alter- 
nately with ash keys, treating the plants produced by the latter as under- 
growths, till the oaks have attained a sufficient size, when the ash trees are to 
be grubbed up. 
Billington’s opinion on this subject is decidedly in favour of using plants 
rather than acorns. He says, the raising of oak woods from sowing the 
acorn in the place it is to remain till the tree comes to matwity has been 
a favourite theory with speculative men for ages. The plan has been tried 
upon an extensive scale in the Forest of Dean, and in the New Forest in Hamp- 
shire, and in some other smaller forests belonging to government in different 
parts of the kingdom. As the experiment was made upon an extensive scale 
im these two principal forests, and was found impracticable, it may be useful to 
those persons who still think that the oak will make a tree sooner or better from 
the acorn than from a transplanted plant, to point out the reasons of the failure 
