PROFITABLE TIMBER TREES 59 



The Common or Pedunculate Oak (Q. pedunculata). 



The British oak has long been the most typical repre- 

 sentative of the forest trees of this country. Our earliest 

 recorded religion is supposed to have been associated with it, 

 and the Druids to derive their name from the tree. It 

 formed the staple timber of our earliest builders of dwelling- 

 houses, ships, and bridges ; its acorns fed the deer and 

 swine of our Saxon ancestors, and its bark tanned the hides 

 which shod and partly clad most classes of the Middle Ages. 

 Many centuries ago, when the wants of mankind were of a 

 more primitive nature, the oak was held in respect more for 

 the sake of its acorns than its timber. Acorns fed the deer 

 of the forest, and the swine and sheep of the agriculturist, 

 and in days when there was little or no distinction between 

 the forest and the public grazing grounds of the entire com- 

 munity, it was to the interest of all parties to protect a tree 

 which invested these grounds with their chief economic value. 

 It is also stated that the acorns served as human food in 

 times of famine or scarcity, and it is possible that the uses to 

 which they were put had some connection with the tree 

 being associated with the Druidical religion. 



The earlier efforts in British oak-growing seem to have 

 been directed towards the production of naval timber, both in 

 the royal forests and on private estates. In the sixteenth 

 century a few plantations appear to have been formed by 

 sowing or planting in the New Forest, Windsor Park, and 

 probably many other parts, although, except in one instance, 

 precise records of such work may not exist. In the New 

 Forest and the Forest of Dean the planting of oak was 

 probably better attended to than in other royal forests, but 

 even in these only spasmodic action would seem to have been 

 taken from time to time, and according as the political affairs 

 of the country were disturbed or otherwise. Both agri- 

 culturists and politicians were constantly drawing attention 

 to its growing scarcity in the sixteenth century, but it was 

 not until the Civil War and the ravages on Crown and private 

 woodlands by the Parliamentary forces that the subject 

 became of serious importance to the country. There is little 



