244 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



study. Few steps have yet been taken looking toward providing for 

 generations to come. Chestnut oak has been left to take care of itself. 

 The trees, produced in nature's way, have been ample to supply all 

 needs in the past, and they will be for the near future. Chestnut oak 

 possesses some advantages over most of the other oaks. Large trees 

 will grow on very poor soil, where most other oaks are little more than 

 shrubs. Trees so grown are little more susceptible to disease than if 

 produced in good soil, though they develop more slowly and are smaller. 

 There are many poor flats and sterile ridges in the chestnut oak's range, 

 and they will produce timber of fairly good kind, if the chestnut oaks are 

 permitted to have them. Nature gave this tree facilities for taking 

 possession. Its acorns will grow without being buried. They do not 

 depend on blue jays to carry them to sunny openings or squirrels to 

 plant them ; but they will sprout where they fall, whether on hard gravel- 

 ly soil or dry leaves; and they at once set about getting the tap roots of 

 the future trees into the ground. In many instances the chestnut oak's 

 acorns do not wait to fall from the tree before they sprout. Like the 

 seed of the Florida mangrove, they are often ready to take root the 

 day they touch the ground. The large acorn is stored with plantfood 

 which sustains the growing germ for some time, and the ground must be 

 very hard and exceedingly dry if a young chestnut oak is not soon 

 firmly established, and good for two or three hundred years, if let alone. 

 The forester who may undertake to grow chestnut oaks must 

 exercise great care in transplanting the seedlings, or the tap roots will be 

 broken and the young trees will die. The best plan is to drop acorns on 

 the ground where trees are expected to grow, and nature will do the rest, 

 provided birds and beasts leave the acorns alone. 



