148 THE OAK 
tree instead of rising up into a tall, straight one. The 
forester usually gets over these difficulties by planting 
beech, or silver fir or some other species among the 
oaks, but in such a way that the oaks are never com- 
pletely shaded by the other trees—that is to say, he 
keeps the trees at different ages, the beech, hornbeam, 
silver fir, spruce, &c., only being allowed to just close 
in the forest, leaving the leaf-crowns of the oaks to 
be fully exposed to the light above. The oak grows 
faster than the beech or spruce, for instance, while 
young, and so keeps its head easily above the others 
fora time. Very often the oak is cultivated pure at 
first, and then, when the oaks are becoming too crowded 
and he has to thin them, the forester puts in the 
silver fir or beech, which prevents the light coming 
in to the lower parts of the young oak-trees, and con- 
sequently prevents the development of lower branches, 
which would give the spreading, squat habit he wishes 
to prevent. For without light the leaves of the 
lower twigs of course cannot make the materials to 
strengthen and thicken the latter into branches, and 
so they die off, and the trunk remains a straight, clean 
cylinder. 
Although oaks are often raised from seed, a number 
of veteran trees being allowed to stand for many years 
in order to scatter the acorns, yet in by far the greater 
number of cases the plants are put in artificially, the 
long tap-roots being first cut in order to make them 
throw out lateral rootlets. Itis also a common practice 
