TREKS OF AMERICA. 31 



all the leaves were scalloped as though some- 

 body had been clipping large pieces out of 

 them with a pair of scissors." 



" No, boys ; for the leaves of the different 

 kinds are all very unlike each other ; you 

 may know the oak-tree in general by the 

 roughness and thickness of the bark, and by 

 the stately look of the tree itself, with its 

 straight strong trunk, and its wide spreading 

 branches ; but, after all, the acorn is the only 

 sure mark to distinguish it by." 



" Do not oaks grow very large sometimes, 

 Uncle Philip ?" 



" Yes, sometimes ; when one is left standing 

 a long, long time, and there are no other trees 

 near it, so that it has a large piece of ground 

 to itself. The largest I ever heard of was in 

 a part of Great Britain called Dorsetshire ; it 

 took a rope sixty-eight feet long to go round 

 it, and when it was very old, and the trunk 

 became rotten and hollow, they made a large 

 room in the hollow part, which a man occu- 

 pied as an alehouse or tavern ; twenty men 

 could stand in it at once." 



" I suppose it was very old, was it not, Uncle 

 Philip ?" 



" Nobody knew how old it really was, as 



