16 



HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



portraits of the Emperors, in a block of oak about four 

 feet high, and about nine feet in circumference, in which 

 is the head of a Stag with the horns partly in the body of 

 the tree and partly out. The hart was twenty-two years 

 old when taken, as appears by the horns. This oak was 

 cut in a forest in Hungary about three hundred years ago. 

 We would wish the experiment to be made of binding a 

 young oak with brass or iron hoops, to ascertain in what 

 time the hoops would be surrounded by solid timber. 



The timber of the oak-tree is so well known, and so 

 justly esteemed, for a variety of purposes, that it would 

 be superfluous to state the whole of them. 



In building ships of war, one great advantage is, that 

 it seldom splinters, which caused foreigners to attribute 

 our naval victories to the excellence of our timber ; but 

 the late war has given so many proofs of our defeating our 

 enemies with ships of their own building, that they must 

 now acknowledge that the bravery of a British sailor is as 

 firm as the heart of an English oak. 



" The particular and most valuable qualities of the oak," 

 says Mr. Gilpin, " are hardness and toughness. Box and 

 ebony are harder, yew and ash are tougher than oak ; but 

 no timber is possessed of both these qualities together in 

 so great a degree as British oak." 



The beauty of oak timber was evidently known to the 

 early Greeks, as Homer thus notices its use 



" Now gently winding up the fair ascent, 

 By many an easy step the matron went : 

 Then o'er the pavement glides with grace divine 

 (With polish'd oak the level pavements shine)." 



Odyssey. 



But it was not until we had manufactured into furniture 

 all the curious woods of the New World, that the trans- 

 cendent splendor of the English oak was brought to any 

 degree of perfection, by the late Mr. Bullock, of Tenterden- 



