The Oaks 279 



elastic among oaks. So elastic, indeed, that it 

 is not well to use long beams of it, unless 

 they are supported. Its tensile strength is 

 enormous, but it gives so much under loads 

 as to throw things higher out of plumb. 

 But for bending and warping it has no equal. 

 Old time shipbuilders swore by it — it was 

 the very thing for sheathing hulls, flooring 

 decks, or making handy boats. Inland tim- 

 ber workers in small ways also found it a 

 godsend. They made thin tough, splints 

 from it to weave into baskets, bottom chairs, 

 knot into muzzles, and do a hundred other 

 things. Then from seasoned sticks of it they 

 turned wagon spokes and felloes, to say 

 nothing of riving pipe-staves for shipping down 

 the river to New Orleans, whence they went 

 further to the wine-makers of France. 



Beyond that, white oak acorns are the big- 

 gest, and far and away the handsomest of all 

 that grow in the woods. They are very 

 long — more than an inch, set in beautiful 

 shallow cups, finely scaled outside, and grow 

 singly or in pairs, in extra mast years in 

 threes, all along last year's twigs. The acorn 

 hulls proper are a rich glossy brown, with a 

 round orange-yellow spot at bottom, where 

 the nut grew into the cup. The shell is 

 thin, with a white furry lining upon the inner 

 side. The kernel is richly yellow, inside a 



