MAY 101 



endure. ' The Doctor of the Wood,' there is no other 

 companion so beneficial to the oak, which, on dry soil, 

 is sure to go stag-headed before its natural term if 

 grown as pure forest. Nowhere can the effect of beech 

 upon oak be better studied than in some of the parks 

 formed within the bounds of the old Forest of Sher- 

 wood. The soil there is dry and hot ; oaks grown un- 

 mixed with other trees invariably show signs of failing 

 vigour after one hundred years ; but in company with 

 beech they remain pictures of robust health and growth 

 till twice or thrice that age. 



Virgil, by the by, is silent about the merits of the 

 beech, for there is good reason to believe that the fagus 

 under which Tityrus reclined was not a beech, but a 

 sweet chestnut. So when Caesar described the English 

 woods as composed of the same trees as those of Gaul, 

 except the fir and the fagus, he probably meant the 

 sweet chestnut ; for there is geological evidence to show 

 that beech is indigenous to southern Britain. Pliny, 

 however, clearly meant beech when he wrote of fagus ; 

 nor can we afford to blame the classical writers for 

 their looseness of expression, seeing that we practise the 

 same ourselves. We often talk of Scots fir, though the 

 tree is no fir, but a pine ; and of mountain-ash, though 

 the rowan is of far different affinity from the ash. 



Beechwood, hitherto little esteemed save by the 

 chairmakers of Bucks, is rising in value. Brushmakers 

 have had to give up German beech for their work 

 because it is not nearly so tough as English beech. 

 When I was a lad, before golf came into general vogue, 

 it was held by experts that crab and pear were the only 



