WHITE-OAK WOODLAKDS. 53 



ous line, but is divided into several hills by ravines, that 

 gradually widen as they approach the bottom, till on tho 

 skirts of the timber they are two or three hundred yards 

 in width. The hills are covered with a heavy growth of 

 timber, principally grand old white oaks, that interlace 

 their branches overhead, while their trunks are such a 

 distance apart as to suggest the idea of their having 

 been planted by some skilled landscape gardener, centu- 

 ries ago. This idea is strengthened by the grouping of 

 the trees, which, in every case, are best arranged to suit 

 the inequalities of the ground. As you approach the edge 

 of the ravine, shrubbery takes the place of the large 

 trees, making an appropriate border for these emerald 

 bays so beautifully carpeted with the thick growing blue 

 grass. These woodlands are very different from the cele- 

 brated wooded blue grass pastures of Kentucky, and 

 much as I have admired them at Woodburn, Ashland, 

 and scores of other places in that favored region of the 

 horse-paradise, still, to my eye, there is more beauty in 

 these I am trying to describe. The Kentucky trees show 

 that they have been a dense growth, and were forced to 

 grow long boles that their tops might not be overshadowed 

 by their high companions. The cutting away of part of 

 tliis growth has made the lack of branches more apparent. 

 Here the annual fires killed all the undergrowth, leav- 

 ing those that were large enough not to be injured by the 

 burning grass at a sufficient distance apart to develop their 

 full beauty. Trees of two or three feet in diameter would 

 scarcely rise twenty feet before they threw out lateral 

 branches approximating to the size of the parent stem. 



What a crown of grandeur some of these old white and 

 burr oaks possess, and to my mind the white oak is, par 

 excellence, the king of trees. I ha~ve a distinct recollection 

 (though it is a long while ago since I saw them) of some 

 of the woods and parks of the " old countrie." When a 



