SESSILE-FRUITED OAK. 263 



average of the remainder from sixteen to eighteen inches ; 

 within the same period, the growth of the larch, taking 

 the medium size, is three feet nine inches at eighteen 

 inches above the ground, the spruce fir nearly four feet, 

 the Scotch fir three feet eight inches, the wych elm from 

 two feet seven inches to three feet, the beech from two 

 feet nine inches to three feet, the sycamore from two 

 feet six inches to three feet, the black Italian poplar of 

 twenty-two and twenty-four years old upwards of five 

 feet, the Salix alba nearly the same. 



Although the Oak will grow in a great variety of soils, 

 and produces valuable timber upon such as seem of very 

 opposite quality, it is generally acknowledged and allowed 

 that it flourishes in the greatest perfection, and produces 

 the best timber upon such as are of a strong adhesive 

 nature, or are known under the term of clayey loams, 

 or good clay soils, more particularly where the substratum 

 is of this description, and of considerable depth, for as it 

 sends down its roots much deeper than most other forest- 

 trees, it derives its chief nutriment from the lower strata, 

 and is not dependent as they are upon the nature of 

 the surface soil. On this account we must not judge 

 of the fitness of the soil for the growth of Oak, by the 

 appearance or quality of the upper stratum, for it frequent- 

 ly happens that extensive districts, where the surface soil 

 is of so poor and inferior a quality as scarcely to repay 

 the cost of cultivation, are nevertheless, from their strong 

 clayey substrata, well adapted to the growth of Oak : 

 such is the case upon many moorish tracts and wastes, 

 where a poor thin surface soil is succeeded by a deep stiff 

 loam, or where the surface is of a poor tilly and gravelly 

 nature, but with a strong clayey substratum. Upon the 

 cold clayey tracts of the north of England and Scotland. 



