i6 



The ivy is not uncommonly removed after the 

 injury is done, and when it might as well, and 

 perhaps better, have been left. 



The best oaks are found in strong clay soils. 

 Our frontispiece represents three venerable and 

 living relics of an ancient forest. The tree in 

 the centre of the group girths twenty-four feet 

 three inches at five feet from the ground, and 

 the other two are not much less. Of course it 

 is impossible to know their age, but judging 

 from the age, which is known, of some oaks near 

 by, it is believed they must have been planted, 

 or rather have planted themselves, before the 

 Norman conquest. The oak has been spoken of 

 as growing for three hundred years, being in 

 maturity for three hundred years, and dying for 

 three hundred years. 



The ancient yule log was of oak, the name 

 being derived from Yiaoul, the Celtic "god of fire," 

 whose festival was kept at Christmas. 



The excrescences on oak leaves and twigs, 

 those on the latter being usually called "oak 

 apples," are produced by the punfture and ovipo- 

 sition of the various kinds of gall flies, of the 

 genus cynips. 



The Turkey oak, Q. ccrris, is the foreign 

 species generally cultivated in England. A native 

 of the south of Europe and Western Asia, it 

 was introduced into this country about 1730. 



