GARDEN LORE 



6S1 



yew and plants something worth while. While the yew 

 is supreme among the Briton's evergreens, the king of 

 decidious trees is the English oak, a proud and sturdy 

 tree, supposed to typify, by its time and storm-weathering 

 qualities, the very essence of British character. It does. 

 Its solitary and individualistic tendencies, often living 

 alone, here and there, in the fields and forests, with its 

 mates at a distance; with dignified, symmetrical outlines 

 and with utter disregard of storm or circumstance. In 

 these matters it surely portrays, graphically, the true 

 Englishman. "Heart of Oak" the song the story 

 that is England. Not that England is alone in this ; for 

 we have our oak trees, too. And they are every whit 



the conjuring names of the mighty sea-kings of long ago ; 

 Raleigh, Hawkes, Drake, Nelson, and hundreds of lesser 

 lights have inspired many a volume, and the strength of 

 glorious and heroic tradition therewith associated has 

 as strong an appeal today as ever the battered and 

 sunken hulks at the moles of Zeebrugge and Ostend gives 

 abundant proof. 



Universally the oak is a symbol of strength, for Jove 

 called it his own ; the tribes of the North dedicated it to 

 Thor, and early and primitive peoples worshipped it as 

 2 sanctified expression of diety. We can hardly wonder 

 at this worship when it is considered what importance 

 the oak assumed in the economic affairs of the ancients; 



A VILLAGE STREET IN OLD ENGLAND 



Such architecture, so natural in its conception, so generally perfect in its execution, is a delightful adjunct to the semi-formal 

 British civic center. One can almost see the lovely color scheme here the brilliance of the hardy annual flowers against the 

 soft neutral tones of the building groups and background. 



as sturdy, every whit as symmetrical, every whit as sym- 

 bolic of national character as their English brethren ; 

 they only lack appropriate recognition ; and more atten- 

 tion at the hands of artists and authors will place the 

 American oak where it belongs, at the head of the list 

 of America's deciduous trees. 



The English oak, even more than the yew, is part and 

 parcel of the romantic history of the Island Empire, and 

 has been the theme of as much grandeloquent speech and 

 laudatory composition as any other one thing produced 

 in Great Britain. The oaken hulls of the ceaseless fleets 

 of merchantmen, the oak-timbered line-of-battle ships, 

 tlie backbone of British sea power of earlier days, recalls 



furnishing the people with dwellings, tools, arms, ships, 

 fuel, and food. 



The Classics are filled with references to the oak; the 

 prow of the Argo was fashioned from a speaking oak of 

 Dordona, and it retained the power of speech even when 

 at sea, directing the Argonauts and telling Jason the 

 need of purging himself of the blood of the murdered 

 Absyrtus. Erysichthon was condemned to lasting hunger 

 by Ceres for cutting down an oak in her garden and 

 killing the nymph who lived in its giant trunk ; and be- 

 cause of the regal strength and appearance of the oak 

 it was singled out by Jupiter when he cast his thunder- 

 bolts of displeasure at the human race, originating the 



