8 THE OAK. 



to include both species. The word Oak is identical 

 with the Saxon aack or ok; from which, also, acorn is 

 derived. Hence Turner, the earliest English author on 

 this subject, says : " Oke, whose fruite we call an acorn or 

 an eykorn (that is, y c corne or fruite of an Eike), are harde 

 of digestion and norishe very much, but they make raw 

 humores. Wherefore we forbid the use of them for 

 meates." 



But finally, not to expend on etymologies too much of 

 the space which should be appropriated to trees and 

 woods ; from the Celtic dene, an Oak, the Druids took 

 their name ; the Greeks also called the tree dnjs, and gave 

 the appellation of Dryads to the imaginary beings who 

 peopled their woods. 



Like most long-lived trees, the Oak is of slow growth, 

 averaging about a foot and a half in circumference in twenty 

 years, and increasing about one inch in a year for the next 

 century of its existence ; after which its rate of growth 

 diminishes. The extreme slowness of this increase may 

 be better estimated by contrasting it with that of the 

 Larch, which is very rapid in its formation of timber. 

 An Oak at Wimbush, in Essex, in thirteen years had in- 

 creased four inches and a half in circumference ; and in 

 the same time a Larch had increased thirty-three inches, 

 or nearly eight times as much. The Oak does not usually 

 attain any great height, being more remarkable for the 

 thickness of its bole, and its widely-spread head. Excep- 

 tions, however, are not wanting. In the Duke of Port- 

 land's park, at Welbeck, there stood, in 1790, an Oak, 

 called " The Duke's walking-stick," which was a hundred 

 and eleven feet high, the trunk rising to the height of 

 seventy feet before it formed a head. Others nearly 

 equalling this have been noticed. 



A remarkable characteristic of the Oak is the stoutness 

 of its limbs. " We know no tree, except, perhaps, the 

 Cedar of Lebanon, so remarkable in this respect The 

 limbs of most trees spring from the trunk ; in the Oak 



