Common Oak 299 



many trees in different parts of England, in order to learn whether the size of the 

 acorns and the vigour of the parent tree had much influence on their strength. I 

 have now watched the growth of these young trees for six seasons, and have arrived 

 at no definite conclusion, though I am much surprised by two facts which have 

 become evident. Lord Ducie has an oak in his park which usually produces acorns 

 of unusual size, some that he has weighed being only 36 to the pound. The 

 plants from these were no stronger than those of normal acorns ; and some of the 

 very finest plants that I raised were produced by the small acorns of a very stunted 

 grafted tree with variegated leaves, which I only sowed to see whether any variega- 

 tion would appear in their leaves. I found, however, that on the average the 

 acorns gathered on my own place on similar soil gave the best results, and that 

 those from Hants and Kent did not produce such good seedlings as those from 

 Nottinghamshire. 



The shoot appears above ground about the time the oak comes into leaf, or 

 rather sooner, and the first growth is completed in three weeks or a month. A 

 second growth, corresponding to the summer shoots of the parent tree, is produced 

 in July or August, and sometimes even a third shoot. If sown in a nursery-bed 

 they will be 4 to 12 inches high at the end of the first season, and should be trans- 

 planted in the following spring before they are a year old. For if the tap root is not 

 cut early it will become so long and strong in good soil that the transplantation is 

 a severe check to the young tree. 



When lined out in the nursery they must remain two years longer, in good soil 

 kept clean, after which the best of them should be 2 to 3 feet high and fit to plant 

 out permanently, except where the herbage is long and coarse. They are some- 

 times left three years, but this is too long, though, where the land they are to go to 

 is good and not too heavy, liberties may be taken with oaks which could not 

 be risked on poor soil. If not planted out at three years they should be trans- 

 planted once more in the nursery, and at five or six years old ought to be 4 or 5 

 feet high, whilst oaks sown in situ in land covered with herbage or weeds will at the 

 same age often be not more than a foot high and much less strong. In the long 

 run, however, those which have never been transplanted will probably pass the others 

 when once they have established a good root system, which in poor soil is a very 

 slow process. Transplanted oaks, if they do not come away with good straight 

 leaders, are best cut down to the ground the second or third spring after they are 

 planted, when their roots are sufficiently established to throw up a strong leader. 

 Some say ' that this should not be done until the beginning of June when the sap is 

 running strongly, but experiments which I have made seem to prove that April or 

 May is better. Mice are the worst enemies of young seedling oaks, and where 

 they are numerous cause an immense deal of damage by barking and biting them 

 off close to the ground. 



' Hayes states, Planting, i6o (1794), that from long observation he can aver that the root of an oak never produces a 

 growth of finer young wood than when the tree is felled about the first week in June, when the sap is flowing most freely, 

 and refers to Marshall's Minutes of Agriculture and Planting in the Midland Shires of England for evidence in support of this 

 opinion. 



