~e 
i 
Karnben. ipso 
CHAPTER III 
l 
Among the Oaks 
NO other tree of the forest has so often as the 
oak been sung by poets. Ever since the days of 
Virgil and Horace, it has been the monarch of 
the woodlands, the typical embodiment of majestic 
grandeur, of stately strength, and of rugged 
resistance alike to the storms of spring and 
autumn and to the wintry blasts. Whether 
as an ornamental tree in parks and pasture lands, 
spreading out giant arms beneath which the 
cattle and sheep can find a welcome refuge from 
the burning sun in summer, or as a true tree of 
the forest, growing as a standard in copse, or 
as a timber tree of the highwoods, the oak is 
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