152 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
as the Contmental botanists consider them, of the European 
white oak Next to the white oak, are to be arianged, at nearly 
equal distances about it, the over cup, the post and the swamp 
white oak, forming a second group, with qualities very nearly 
equal to those of the first Of these, the last 1s most remote, 
and connects them with the chestnut oak group, to which the 
elde. Michaux considered it as belongmg ‘This third group 
includes the chestnut oak, the rock chestnut, and the chinca- 
pin with the chestnut white oak of a region further south All 
these slide, by almost imperceptible gradations, ito each other 
The fourth group, entirely distinct, mcludes the black, the 
scarlet, the red and the bear oak, so nearly allied as to be 
generally considered the ‘‘1ed oaks,” and in many places this 
single name includes them all 
ON PLANTING WITH OAKS 
Tus value of oak timber 1s already so great, and it 1s so con- 
stantly and surely increasing, from the diminution of the home 
supply and the mereased difficulty of gettmg it fiom abioad, 
all the kinds of oak, are, moreover, of so slow growth, and the 
number of yeais necessary to create a forest so very great, and 
dependence on a foreign supply 1s so unsafe, that 1t 1s obviously 
impoitant that means should be immediately taken to con- 
vert into future forests some of the many thousand acres sus- 
ceptible of this, which are now lying waste 
I shall, therefo1e, make no apology fo. giving a bnief account 
of the means which have been most successfully used in England 
and on the continent of Europe, for the forming of oak forests 
In Britain, imumerable experiments have been tned, ever 
since the days of Evelyn For the details of these, | must 
refer to the many publications on the subject which have been 
made in that country, paiticulaily to Loudon’s Arboretum, 
which gives a historical view of all the most impoitant ones — 
‘ Artificial shelter,” says Loudon, (Ard, 1V, p 1800,) ‘it is 
allowed by almost all writers on the culture of the oak, 1s essen- 
tially necessary to ensure the rapid progress of a young planta- 
