1720 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICKTUM. PART III. 



soil more or less calcareous. No oak in the temperate climates is found of a 

 large size at a great elevation above the level of the sea ; or where the climate 

 is very severe in spring. In the Himalayas, and in Mexico, oaks are found 

 of large size on mountains ; but then the climate, naturally hot, is only ren- 

 dered temperate by elevation. All oaks whatever are impatient of spring frosts. 



History. The oak, from the earliest ages has been considered as one of the 

 most important of forest trees. It is celebrated, Burnet observes, " in story 

 and in song, in the forest and in the field, and unrivalled in commerce and 

 the arts." It was held sacred alike by the Hebrews, the Greeks, and Romans, 

 and the ancient Britons and Gauls j and it was " the fear of the superstitious 

 for their oracle, at the same time that it was the resort of the hungry for their 

 food." The earliest histories that exist contain frequent references to this 

 tree. The grove planted by Abraham, at Beersheba, was of allun, which 

 Hillier considers to have been Quercus jE'sculus; and he translates the 

 words elon Mamre (Gen., xviii. 1.) the oak grove of Mamre, instead of the 

 plane or terebinthine tree, as elon or ailon is sometimes rendered. In the 

 like manner, " the plane of Moreh" (Gen., xii. 6.) is said to signify the oak 

 of Moreh ; and the plane of Mamre, wherever it occurs, the oak tree, or oak 

 grove, of Mamre. (See Hierophyticon,&c.) According to Jewish traditions, the 

 oak of Mamre (Gen., xviii. 1.), under which Abraham stood when the angels 

 announced to him the birth of Isaac, long remained an object of vene- 

 ration ; and Bayle (Diet. Hist, et Crit.) says that it was still in existence in 

 the reign of the emperor Constantine. This tree, or rather the grove of 

 Mamre, is frequently alluded to in the Old Testament ; and in Eusebius's 

 Life of Constantine we find the oaks of Mamre expressly mentioned, as a place 

 where idolatry was committed by the Israelites, close to the tomb of Abraham, 

 and where Constantine afterwards built a church. The first mention of 

 the word oak in the English version of the Bible appears to be in Gen., 

 xxxv. 8. : " But Deborah Rebekah's nurse died, and she was buried beneath 

 Bethel under an oak : and the name of it was called Allon-bachuth :" literally, 

 the oak of weeping. Numerous other instances of the mention of oaks occur 

 in the Holy Scriptures, particularly in the case of Absalom, whose hair was 

 caught " by the thick boughs of a great oak." (Second Book of Sam., xviii. 9.) 

 Joshua, before his death, made a solemn covenant with the people in 

 Shechem, and, after writing it in the Book of the Law of God, " took a great 

 stone, and set it up there under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord," 

 as a witness unto them, lest they should deny God. (Joshua, xxiv. 2G.) 



Among the Greeks, the Arcadians believed that the oak was the first created 

 of trees, and that they were the first people; but, according to others, the 

 oaks which produced the acorns first eaten by men grew on the banks of 

 Achelous. Pelasgus taught the Greeks to eat acorns, as well as to build huts. 

 The oak groves of Dodona, in Epirus, formed the most celebrated and most 

 ancient oracle on record ; and Pliny states that the oaks in the Forest of 

 Hercynia were believed to be coeval with the world. Herodotus, and 

 numerous other Greek writers, speak of celebrated oaks ; and it was an oak 

 that destroyed Milo of Croton. Pliny states that oaks still existed at the 

 tomb of Ilus near Troy, which had been sown when that city was first called 

 Ilium. Socrates often swore by the oak ; and the women of Priene, a mari- 

 time city of Ionia, in matters of importance, took an oath by the gloomy oak, 

 on account of a great battle that took place under an oak between the Prie- 

 nians and other lonians. On Mount Lycaeus, in Arcadia, there was a temple of 

 Jupiter with a fountain, into which the priest threw an oak branch, in times of 

 drought, to produce rain. The Greeks had two remarkable sayings relative to 

 this tree, one of which was the phrase ; " I speak to the oak," as a solemn asse- 

 veration ; and the other, " Born of an oak," applied to a foundling ; because, 

 anciently, children, when the parents were unable to provide for them, were 

 frequently exposed in the hollow of an oak tree. 



Frequent reference is made to the oak, by ancient writers, on account of 

 the use made of the acorns in feeding swine. In the Bible, the woods of 



