278 HOW TO GROW GOOD TIMBER. 



CHAPTER XLII. 



ON THE BRITISH OAK. 



Whilst the discussion is still pending, of iron 

 against wooden bulwarks, if only for the love we feel 

 towards the "brave old oak," a few notes upon the 

 forms of this truly national tree can hardly fail to be 

 acceptable. At starting, however, we must bear in 

 mind, that though we have ever looked upon the oak 

 as so thoroughly British that we had almost been 

 brought to think that it was made for the sole glory 

 of our land, yet there are those who would wish to 

 cast a doubt upon its true aboriginal nature, and who, 

 according to their custom, represent everything great 

 as borrowed from the Continent. "What says, however, 

 that pleasant discourser on forest trees, Jacob George 

 Strutt, of imperishable sylvan fame : — " In proportion 

 as the oak is valued above all other trees, so is the 

 English oak esteemed above that of any other country, 

 for its particular characteristics of hardness and 

 toughness, qualities which so peculiarly fit it to be 

 the 'father of ships, 5 and which are- so admirably 

 expressed in two epithets by that great poet, to whom 

 the book of nature and of the human heart seemed 

 alike laid open : — 



Thou rather with thy sharp and sulph'rous bolt 

 Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, 

 Than the soft myrtle." — Shakespeare. 



Selby again, in his "History of Porest Trees," a 



