DURATION OF OAK FOREST. 79 



general progress. For a hedgerow, plants of a more 

 mature kind, like the latter, are needed, as the smaller 

 and the younger oak plants frequently suffer from 

 vermin. The oak sending its tap-root deep down 

 into the ground, if it is not transplanted, but allowed 

 to stand in the same situation for more than two 

 years, that bushiness of root is not created which is 

 necessary ; for though they may appear strong and 

 healthy, they will be of very little use for planting out. 

 Although the oak in its infancy does not 

 advance so rapidly as many other trees, it is by no 

 means an unprofitable one to grow. Being usually 

 planted with other trees, which act as nurses, 

 and cause it to assume form and shape, these 

 generally have acquired a certain value when it 

 becomes necessary to remove them, and when the 

 oak gets to twenty years old, it will grow as fast 

 as most hard-wooded trees. Also, when the timber of 

 an oak plantation is felled, the roots rapidly spring 

 again, and for ten years generally grow twice as fast 

 as plantations newly formed, an advantage which 

 must also be favourably compared against the difficulty 

 there frequently is of establishing another plantation 

 upon any site which has recently produced timber ; 

 though there is a striking instance to the contrary in 

 that of birch following fir. Oak coppice has indeed 

 been found more profitable than growing timber in 

 some situations, the bark of which there is always 

 a market for. Where large oak trees are grown, and 

 the heaviest felled for certain purposes, the vacancies 

 thus occasioned soon disappear, and by constant 

 succession an oak forest may be said to be never 

 exhausted. Larch grows well with the oak ; for while 



