The Oaks 



imported article. The delectable "beefsteak" fungus, which grows 

 on the trunks of certain of our native oaks, is highly esteemed 

 by those who know it, but most people cautiously despise all 

 "toadstools," great and small. 



The Cork Oak (Quercus Suber), native to the peninsulas of 

 southern Europe, and to northern Africa, is a small evergreen oak, 

 rarely over 30 feet high and 2 feet in diameter, which grows in 

 forests on broken, unproductive land. The importance of these 

 forests has never waned, because nobody has discovered or in- 

 vented a satisfactory substitute for cork. In France and all other 

 vine-growing countries the importation of cork is a great business. 

 What wonder then that the people in the grape and wine belt of 

 California rejoiced to fmd that the cork oak can be successfully 

 grown on the otherwise unproductive foothills of the Sierra Nevada 

 Mountains. It is a vast saving to raise their own bottle stoppers 

 instead of importing them from the other side of the globe. 



What a novel experience it would be to visit at harvest time 

 one of those forests in Spain or Algeria which have for centuries 

 furnished cork to the world! We should not say the business was 

 carried on in a very economical or economic way, as we Americans 

 count those things. There is not the rush and bustle of the 

 Western World in those sleepy countries. Haste makes waste 

 in growing cork and stripping it. The slowest-growing trees pro- 

 duce the best grade of cork, and they are not at their best till fifty 

 years old. For the next fifty years they yield a thick coat of cork 

 every ten years. Then the quality deteriorates, and the trees 

 are cut down, the bark sent to the tan pit, and the charcoal burner 

 takes the wood. 



When the age of twenty-five years is reached it is time to 

 strip off from the trunk the "virgin bark," a thin, hard, outer 

 layer, which is rich in tannin, but bears no resemblance to cork. 

 The removal of this layer sets the tree to forming a spongy layer, 

 thick and entirely different from the first. This grows eight or 

 ten years, when it is removed, and a second layer produced. The 

 first is practically useless. The second stripping gives cork used 

 by fishermen to float their nets with. The stripping goes on, each 

 decade showing improvement in the quality of the cork until the 

 fiftieth year brings it to its best state. 



The stripping of cork is a particular job. Two opposite 

 vertical cuts are made the full length of the trunk; then circular 



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