ACORNS AND OAKS. 81 



What scale so fine as to measure, or what 

 balance so delicate as to weigh, the present 

 germs of the thousands of giant oaks which 

 are all to be produced by that little thing in its 

 infant dress, and which are to form those future 

 navies by which the sea is made to rule as well as 

 encompass the land ! 



PENSHANGER OAK. 



That and other of the great oaks which have 

 justly acquired celebrity in various parts of Eng- 

 land, as being both ornaments and historical re- 

 cords, produce enough of acorns every fertile year 

 to stock a forest ; and yet the germs of all their 

 generations must have been contained in the first 



