DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 99 



As beauty is often closely connected with utility in our minds, 

 we must be allowed a word on the great value of this tree. For 

 its useful properties the oak has scarcely any superior. " To 

 enumerate," says old Evelyn in his quaint Sylva, " the in- 

 comparable uses of this wood were needless ; but so precious 

 was the esteem of it of old, there was an express law among- 

 the Twelve Tables concerning the very gathering of the 

 acorns, though they should be found fallen on another man's 

 ground. The land and the sea do sufficiently speak for the 

 improvement of this excellent material, for houses and ships 

 cities and navies, are builded with it." In almost all the 

 finest buildings of Europe, particularly the vast Gothic edi- 

 fices of the middle ages, oak was the chief material for the 

 interior. The rich old wainscott, the innumerable carvings 

 and decorations of those days were executed in this material. 

 In America, the vast pine forests produce a wood easily 

 wrought, which has in a great measure superseded the use 

 of this fine timber, and the exportation of immense quantities 

 of the former to the eastern continent, has even in some de- 

 gree lessened its consumption abroad. But for certain pur- 

 poses, where great strength and durability are required, the 

 oak will always take the precedence claimed for it by Eve- 

 lyn.* The English oak is probably rather superior in these 



ground. The roots rise above the surface in a very extraordinary manner, so as 

 to furnish a natural seat for the beggars chancing to pass along the pathway near 

 it ; and the circumference taken there is 68 feet. The branches extend from 

 the tree 48 feet in every direction. 



Tlie Wallace Oak, at Edenslee, near where Wallace was born, is a noble tree 

 21 feet in circumference. It is 67 feet high, and its branches extend 45 feet east 

 36 west, 30 south, and 25 north. Wallace and 300 of his men are said to have 

 hid themselves from the English among the branches of this tree, which was 

 then in full leaf 



^ The doors of the inner chapels of Westminster, it is stated, are of the same 

 age as the original building ; and as the original ancient edifice was founded in 

 611, they must consequently be more than 1200 years old. Professor Burnet, 



