152 THE OAK 



Of course there are very many other details to be 

 considered in the technical cultivation of the oak, but 

 enough has been said to give the reader a general 

 account of the procedure, and I now pass to the subject 

 of the dangers and diseases which threaten the tree at 

 various periods in its development, and the timber 

 afterwards. 



The diseases and injuries to which the oak is subject 

 are very numerous and various, although, compared 

 with some other indigenous trees, it suffers remarkably 

 little from the different dangers which await it at all 

 stages in the course of its long life from the seedling 

 to the aged tree. Some of these are referable to the 

 exigencies of the non-living environments the climate, 

 soil, &c. ; others are due to the attacks of living or- 

 ganisms, both vegetable and animal from the weeds 

 which smother the young seedlings by keeping the 

 light from them, to man himself, who injures the trees 

 in various ways. The earliest struggles of the young 

 seedling are with the weeds, slugs, and insects of 

 various kinds that invade the territory on which the 

 acorn has germinated, and of course the baby plant 

 has also to contend against any inclemencies of climate 

 or unsuitableness of soil that it may meet with. Owing 

 to such vicissitudes very many of the seedlings never 

 obtain the dimensions of a plant at all, and in some 

 seasons the mortality is enormous. Other destructive 

 agents during these early phases of the life of the 

 oak are cattle and deer, which not only tread down 



