316 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



To the above letter Professor Balfour thus replied : — 



Royal Botanic Garden, 

 Edinbukgh, 19i!/i November 1900. 



Dear Sir, — I have received from the Secretary of the Arbori- 

 cultural Society your letter to him regarding the oak trees in your 

 vicinity. 



You are correct in supposing that the oak is indigenous in 

 Scotland. Proof of this is afforded, as you say, by the Gaelic 

 termination of so many place-names, and also by the presence of 

 remains of the oak in peat-bogs. It is, however, well known that 

 in Aberdeenshire and elsewhere in the north, the fruit seldom 

 grows large or ripens, and there can be no doubt that a large 

 proportion of the trees that are now found in the north have been 

 planted. But besides this, even in favourable districts, the oak 

 trees do not produce a full crop every year. This only happens at 

 intervals of a few years, and in unfavourable districts it is quite 

 possible that the intervals may be greatly prolonged between even 

 fair crops. 



With regai'd to the absence of saplings, perhaps the following 

 passage, which I take from Dr Nisbet's recently published volume 

 upon "Our Forests and Woodlands," page 115, gives the explana- 

 tion : — 



"Man}' of the self-sown oak and beech woods are now found difficult to 

 regenerate naturally. Owing to the want of close cover the soil often gets 

 overgrown with grass, or, worse still, with moss; and then a satisfactory crop 

 of self-sown seedlings cannot reasonably be expected. Soil-preparation of 

 some sort is in such cases 'absolutely essential to enable acorns and mast to 

 germinate and establish themselves in the soil. Moreover, the change in the 

 conditions between the olden and the present times must also be taken into 

 account. Most of the woods now mature date back to a period when cattle 

 and swine were probably still largely driven into the oak and beech woods 

 for grazing and pannage ; and they were in the vast majority of cases, no 

 doubt, the principal agents in obtaining a satisfactory regeneration. The 

 sharp hoofs of the cattle, and the burrowing and wallowing of the swine after 

 satisfying themselves with mast, worked the acorns and beech nuts into the 

 ground, besides breaking this up so as to loosen it, aerate it, and prepare 

 it generally as an effective seed-bed. Indeed, in many of the Continental 

 woods, and especially in beechwoods, the herding of cattle and the pannage 

 of swine form some of the usual steps taken at the time of a seed-falling for 

 the regeneration of the mature crop of trees. It is cheap, and to a certain 

 extent effective ; and it forms a good basis for the assistance of natural 

 regeneration by more elaborate artificial measures in the way of hoeing or 

 digging, sowing and planting. 



