276 SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



The wood of this Oak is hard, tough, tolerably flexible, 

 and not easily admitting water ; it is strong, without be- 

 ing too heavy, and not apt to splinter. For these qua- 

 lities, it is valued for building ships. " There is a kind 

 of it," says Evelyn, " so tough and compact, that our 

 hardest tools will hardly enter it." 



" The most valued qualities of the Oak," remarks Mr, 

 Gilpin, " are hardness and toughness. Box and ebony 

 are harder, yew and ash are tougher than the oak, but 

 no timber is possessed of both these qualities together in 

 so great a degree as the British Oak." 



The sawdust is an ingredient in many brown and drab- 

 coloured dyes ; the Oak apples, also, are used in dyeing, 

 as a substitute for galls. The bark .is used in tanning 

 leather, and afterwards is valuable to the gardeners in 

 raising many tender plants. A blue dye for wool is pre- 

 pared by infusing Oak bark with a little copperas ; it is 

 not particularly brilliant, but is very lasting. 



The leaves are often dried and used for litter ; these, 

 too, are serviceable to the gardeners ; there is a honey- 

 dew upon them, in which bees take great delight. The 

 aphis of the Oak extracts the juice from the leaves, which 

 is afterwards passed through her horns, and forms the 

 honey-dew so grateful to flies and bees. Linnaeus has 

 given to this aphis the name of the anfs milch-cow, be- 

 cause that interesting little creature is said to drink the 

 juice from its horns. 



Roucel, in his Flora du Nord de France, says that 

 " these acorns, roasted, ground, and made into bread, have 

 been eaten in times of scarcity ; that they may be used 

 as coffee, which they resemble in flavour, and that so 

 used they have the property of strengthening the nerves : 

 he says the fresh fruit has an agreeable taste, and may 



