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 

 for a 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. It is also a common practice 



