Common Oak — Qiicrcus rubur. 



is really the best timber that is known. Some tim- 

 ber is harder, some more difficult to rend, and 

 some less capable of being broken across ; but none 

 contains all the three qualities in so great and so 

 equal proportions ; and thus, for at once supporting 

 a weight, resisting a strain, and not splintering by a 

 cannon shot, the timber of the oak is superior to every 

 other. Excepting the sap wood, the part nearest 

 the bark, which is not properly matured, it is very 

 durable, whether in air, in earth, or in water ; and it 

 is said that no insects in the island will eat into the 

 heart of oak, as they do, sooner or later, into most 

 of the domestic and many of the foreign kinds of 

 timber. 



Important as the oak is now in the arts, there was a 

 period in the history of Britain when it was valued prin- 

 cipally, for its acorns. It is not recorded that acorns 



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