DECIDUOUS TREES. 303 



thousand has ever seen the full expansion of a white oak grown to 

 maturity in open ground I Downing's excellent description of the 

 forest monarch is so apt that we here transcribe it ; premising that 

 such general remarks on the oak usually apply to the white oaks, 

 which at maturity are the noblest of all the species. 



" As an ornamental object we consider the oak the most varied 

 in expression, the most beautiful, grand, majestic, and picturesque 

 of all deciduous trees. # * * When young its fine foliage 

 (singularly varied in many of our native species) and its thrifty 

 form render it a beautiful tree. But it is not till the oak has at- 

 tained considerable size that it displays its true character, and only 

 when at an age that would terminate the existence of most other 

 trees that it exhibits all its magnificence. Then its deeply-fur- 

 rowed trunk is covered with mosses ; its huge branches, each a 

 tree, spreading horizontally from the trunk with great boldness, its 

 trunk of huge dimension, and 'its high top bald with dry antiquity' — 

 all these, its true characteristics, stamp the oak, as Virgil has ex- 

 pressed it in his Georgics — 



* Jove's own tree, 

 That holds the woods in awful sovereignty.' 



While oaks which have already attained great size are the 

 noblest environments of a home, yet for some reasons they are 

 less desirable to plant in small grounds than many other trees 

 which grow to noble size and beautiful proportions in less time, 

 though they may not finally develop so grandly. The finest species 

 of the oak are late in leaf, and of slow growth ; are addicted to 

 holding their dry dead leaves upon the branches through the win- 

 ter and early spring, and then dropping them week after week into 

 the fresh grass of spring lawns just when we want them brightest 

 and cleanest. And the younger and thriftier the tree the greater 

 its tenacity in holding the old leaves. This fault is principally 

 confined to the white and Turkey oaks. 



It will surprise most Americans to know the great number of 

 species of oak that are indigenous in this country, and in their 

 own neighborhoods. Loudon in his Arboretum Brittanicum enu- 

 merates about two hundred species and varieties of oaks known 



