316 Select Plants for Industrial Culture 



The wood is fine-grained, strong and tough; it is ornamental for 

 furniture on account of the strong development of medullary rays. 



Quercus Phellos, Linn. 



The Willow-Oak of the South-Eastern States of North-America. 

 In low damp forest-land attaining a stem-girth of 12 feet. The wood 

 is hard, compact and very elastic, suitable for railway-carriages and 

 many other structures (Dr. C. Mohr). The acorns available for food. 

 A variety or closely allied species is the Shingle-Oak, Q. imbricaria, 

 Michaux. The comparative value of the very numerous Cis- and 

 Trans- Atlantic oaks, but little as yet understood in the eastern world 

 either for avenue-purposes or timber-plantations, should be tested with 

 practical care. Even recently oaks have been discovered on the 

 south-eastern mountains of New Guinea at not very high elevations. 



Quercus Prinus, Linn. 



The Swamp-Oak or Chestnut-Oak. South-Eastern States of North- 

 America. A tree, becoming 90 feet high: aged stem as much as 15 

 feet in girth (Meehan). The tree is hardy in Norway to lat. 59 55'. 

 Foliage deciduous. Wood strong and elastic, but more porous and of 

 a coarser grain than that of the white oak; according to Porcher it 

 is easy to split and not hard, used for building purposes, also 

 cooperage. A red dye is produced from the bark; the latter is one of 

 the most important among oak-bark for tanning, furnishing a very 

 solid and durable leather. 



Quercus Robur, 



The British Oak. Extending through the greatest part of Europe, 

 also to Western Asia, attaining a great age and an enormous 

 size. It endures the frosts of Norway as far north as 65 54'; while 

 in lat. 59 40' a tree measured was 125 feet high and 25 feet in cir- 

 cumference of stem (Schuebeler). Over 700 sound annual rings have 

 been counted, and it has even been contended, that oaks have lived 

 through 1,500 years. At Ditton's Park, owned by the Duke of 

 Buccleugh, is an ancient oak, assumed to be 600 years old, with a 

 stem-circumference of 30 feet at some distance (a few feet) from the 

 ground (Dr. Masters and Th. Moore). Oaks have been known to gain a 

 stem 12 feet in diameter at the base, 10 feet in the middle and 5 feet 

 at the main branches. Two varieties are distinguished; 1. Q. sessili- 

 flora (Salisbury), the Durmast-Oak, with a darker, heavier timber, 

 more elastic, less fissile, easier to bend under steam. This tree is also 

 the quicker of the two in growth, and lives in poorer soil. Its bark 

 is richer in medicinal dyeing and tanning principles. Extract of 

 oak-bark for tanners' use fetches about 18 per ton in the London 

 market; the best oak-bark yields 16 to 20 per cent, tannin. 2. Q. 

 pedunculata (Ehrhart). This variety supplies most of the oak-timber 

 in Britain for ship-building, and is the best for cabinet-makers' and 

 joiners' work. In Britain it is sometimes attacked by Scolytus 

 multistriatus. Mr. W. Winter noticed, that the British oak with- 

 stood an occasional shade-temperature of 118 degrees F. in Riverina y 



