THE OAK. 271 
of great value. Another great advantage arising from the oak 
is, that a plantation of it never requires to be replanted after 
the timber is felled. The roots readily spring, and form a 
rapid growth, generally for the first ten years, twice as fast as 
that of the most thriving plantation newly formed. This 
advantage is greatly enhanced from the difficulty often arising 
in immediately establishing a plantation on ground which has 
recently produced timber. 
Since the late reduction of the duty on foreign timber, the 
cultivation of oak coppice is reckoned much more profitable 
in many situations than that of heavy timber. Indeed, coppice 
has always been found most profitable in situations destitute 
of a cheap conveyance to the market; the carriage of bark 
being always small compared with the value of the commodity. 
In felling coppice-wood the ground is cleared, and the value 
correctly ascertained per acre. (See Coppice; and for the 
mode of “barking,” see an article on that subject.) In oak 
forests where large trees are grown, the heaviest, or such 
timbers as are adapted for particular purposes, are selected ; 
and where the trees are of vigorous growth, the vacancies thus 
occasioned readily disappear. An oak forest, therefore, affords 
a constant succession, the sizes of the trees are very diversified, 
and it is never exhausted. There is no tree better adapted 
for coming to maturity, interspersed with oaks, or more profit- 
able in a congenial soil, than the larch, From its upright 
growth it occupies but a small space compared to its value ; it 
readily overtops the oak, and sometimes affords a desirable 
shelter in the opening up of the season. Its roots ramify and 
draw their nourishment chiefly from the surface soil ; whereas 
the oak strikes its roots deep and wide through various strata, 
generally embracing a large body of inorganic matter ; and 
thus, since the trees depend on separate resources, they are 
more profitably associated than most other kinds. The oak is 
an approved tree for hedgerow timber ; its roots are not apt 
to rob the surrounding crops, which are generally well advanced 
before the tree comes into leaf, and for that reason its shade 
is not so enfeebling as that of many other trees. 
