OAK 



4323 



OAK 





acorns until they are twenty years old. The 

 nuts are sometimes sweet, sometimes very bit- 

 ter. In the south of Europe they are boiled 

 and eaten ; elsewhere they are seldom consumed 

 by human beings, but from earliest times have 

 been fed to swine. 



Oak timber has served mankind for many 

 centuries. In Westminster Abbey stands the 

 .-hrine of Edward the Confessor, the oak of 

 which it is built still apparently as sound as it 

 was nearly 900 years ago. Aside from the rare 

 woods like mahogany, rosewood and ebony, oak 

 is equaled in weight only by hickory, and, as it 

 uch more plentiful and more easily worked 

 thin th<- last named, it has no rival among 

 li:ml woods. It rots very slowly, even if sub- 

 alternate dampness and drying. For 

 .-hiplmilding it wa the principal material be- 

 fore the day of steel. To-day it is prized moat 

 of all for its beauty, especially when quart, r- 

 sawod. Accompanying the nrti. 1 will 



und diagrams illustrating methods of ob- 

 :IR quarter-sawed oak. 



Mgland, where in the days of the I 

 oaks were held sacred, there are some < 



still thriving which may have been seen by the 

 Saxon kings. One in Gloucestershire has a cir- 

 cumference of nearly forty-eight feet; it has 

 no near rival in size. Two or three centuries is 

 the usual life of an oak. 



The oak family is known in many lands. 

 From the Malay countries and China westward 

 across the Himalayas and the Caucasus, and 

 throughout most of Europe from Sicily to the 

 Arctic Circle, it is familiar. In North America 

 it is found almost wherever there are trees, \- 

 cept in the regions of great cold, and its path- 

 way extends southward into the Andes. The 

 oak of England is very similar to the American 

 white oak. The ilex of Southern Europe is an 

 evergreen, like the moss-hung live oak of Un- 

 American South. 



Among American species the noblest is the 

 white oak, which sometimes attains a height of 

 150 feet and :i trunk dian.< ::ht feet. 



Its bark is pale gray, and it bears leaves with 

 round or finger-shaped lobes, whose deep red 

 color adds charm and beauty to our autumn 

 landscapes. The white oak is found from 

 Canada to the Gulf of Mexico ai 1 t<> 



