SESSILE-FRUITED OAK. 265 



constant saturation of the earth during long-continued rains, 

 or else from having been desiccated and bound up in an 

 impenetrable brick-like mass by the spring and summer 

 droughts. In the autumn of the fifth year we had this 

 plantation thoroughly intersected by open drains, and at 

 the end of the succeeding summer the effect was visible 

 and striking; the whole of the plants which, during the 

 previous year, had presented a sickly, dying aspect, had 

 already, in most instances, made tolerable shoots, and 

 had acquired a healthy colour, at the same time that 

 the soil had become loose and friable, and the surface 

 which previously presented nothing to the eye but patches 

 of carex recurva, and a few scattered tufts of lotus com'i- 

 culatus, had become thickly covered with herbage. Up 

 to the present time, now three years since the drains 

 were cut, the progress of the trees has been as rapid as 

 we could wish or expect, and the earth is now loose 

 and friable, and of a texture very dissimilar to what it 

 exhibited when saturated with moisture and undrained. 



The Oak is propagated entirely by acorns, which are 

 either sown at once in the place where the plants are 

 to remain, or else in nurseries where, after being trans- 

 planted from the seed-beds, they are allowed to stand 

 for two or three years, or until they acquire sufficient 

 size and strength to suit the views of different purchasers. 

 Each mode of propagation has its advocates and admirers, 

 and much has been said and written by both parties in 

 favour and defence of their respective opinions. The acorn 

 planter pleads for his system that it appears to be more 

 in accordance with the common course of nature, at the 

 same time imagining that the preservation of the early 

 tap root of the seedling is essential to the future develope- 

 ment of the tree ; on the contrarv, the favourer of the 



