32 THE OAK. 



or parallel lines about the object of his choice ; no hemi- 

 spherical evenly- shaped head ; no arms of equal diameter 

 springing from the main stem at the same angle, and ex- 

 tending to an equal distance all round. But show him a 

 veteran patriarch, whose gnarled trunk is eaten out by 

 the frost of centuries, whose knotted limbs are fringed 

 with ferns, and mottled with innumerable mosses and 

 lichens ; even if but a scanty foliage clings to branches 

 which have been shattered again and again by the tempest, 

 or if, instead of a leafy summit, it rears aloft a fantastic 

 assemblage of hoary, sapless antlers ; and you will hear 

 him exclaim, "I go no farther to-day; this is the tree for 

 a picture ! " And move he will not, until with his pencil 

 he has produced the same image which the poet has 

 conjured up with his pen. 



" A huge Oak, dry and dead, 

 Still clad with reliques of its glories old, 



Lifting to Heaven its aged, hoary head ; 

 Whose foot on earth hath got but feeble hold, 



And, half-disbowelled, stands above the ground ; 

 With wreathed roots, and naked arms, 



And trunk all rotten and unsound." SPENSER. 



About the end of April the season for barking com- 

 mences, and to this process Oaks, both old and young, are 

 equally subjected ; those of from twenty to thirty years' 

 growth, however, being preferred. Oak bark is occasionally 

 used in medicine, and is employed also as a dye, but is 

 most valuable for the principal called tannin, which is 

 indispensable in the manufacture of leather. Every part of 

 the tree, indeed, abounds in astringent matter, and even 

 the leaves and sawdust will tan leather, linen cloth, and 

 netting or cordage which is to be much exposed to the 

 weather. 



There is a particular interest connected with trees of 

 great antiquity which attaches itself to nothing else. A 

 Qourishing Oak in the vigour of its age, furnished with a 



