TIMBER TREES. 19 



each kind of timber has been applied, the economic 

 application of the bark and other portions, the trees 

 of each species remarkable for their size, age, or 

 historical associations ; but all this has been so ad- 

 mirably done already in a volume entitled the " Forest 

 Trees of Great Britain," l that it may be omitted with 

 advantage. 



The OAK 2 is the " king of the forest," and is com- 

 mon in all our woodlands and parks. Some persons 

 are of opinion that what we term the " oak " consists 

 of two species, others that these are only well marked 

 varieties. -The distinctions are that in the pedun- 

 culate form the leaves have very short footstalks, and 

 the stalks of the fruits are much elongated. The buds 

 on the young wood are not prominent. In the sessile- 

 fruited form the leaves have long footstalks, the fruit 

 is seated close to the branch, and the buds on the 

 young wood are prominent. What, however, is of 

 still greater importance is, that the timber of the 

 sessile -fruited form is very greatly inferior to that 

 produced by the stalked-fruited or pedunculate form. 

 In the days of wooden ships our "three-deckers" 

 were built of oak ; and a curious calculation is made 

 in Brown's "Forester" as to the quantity of oak 

 which was requisite to construct a first-class " man-of- 

 war." "It takes fully one hundred and fifty thousand 

 cubic feet of timber to build a seventy-four-gun ship ; 

 and allowing upon an average that the trees in an oak 

 forest, when arrived at maturity and ready for ship- 

 building, stood at the distance of about thirty feet 



1 Published by the S. P. C. K. 2 Quercus robur. 

 C 2 



