AMONG THE OAKS 93 



forty foot where they stand closest; especially of 

 the spreading kind.' 



This freedom and liberty of expansion side- 

 wards in all directions has long remained one 

 of the guiding principles in British Arbori- 

 culture, the oaks being grown as individual 

 trees, and not regarded as merely important 

 units or valuable items in the crops of timber. 

 And it is only within the last few years that 

 general opinion in this country has begun to 

 veer round so far as to admit that better 

 monetary results are certainly obtainable from 

 woodlands if these be grown much more thickly 

 than hitherto, or ' in normal density of canopy 

 for the given kind of tree,' as was the phrase 

 of the scientific forester. 



Even before Evelyn's time the disadvantages 

 of allowing branches to develop to an excessive 

 extent had been loudly decried by William 

 Lawson in his New Orchard and Garden (1618) ; 

 but he advocated pruning, and not any closer 

 position of the oak trees, for the improvement 

 of the bole. 



It is only by growing oak, and all other 

 trees, more closely together than has hitherto 



