OR, PLAIN 



the oak ; but there will be found 

 upon its bark and around its 

 roots, various and curious lichens, 

 mosses, and fungi. Some small 

 fungi will be found growing 

 upon the under surfaces of the 

 leaves. Indeed, to the careful 

 observer, the oak-tree will be 

 found to present a world of in- 

 teresting objects. 



But the great importance of 

 the oak depends chiefly upon the 

 value of its wood. The beauty 

 of the wood of oak when used 

 for furniture and wainscoting, 

 depends partly upon its pleasing 

 hue, and partly upon the variety 

 and brilliancy of the silvery 

 streaks, lines, and curls, that 

 break what would otherwise be 

 a monotonous colour. These are 

 caused by various arrangements 

 and sections of the rings of an- 

 nual growth, and of the medullary 

 rays. Valuable as the wood of 

 the oak is for purposes of build- 

 ing and furniture, it is of immea- 

 surably greater importance for 

 ship-building ; and the amount 

 consumed for this purpose must 

 be immense. An oak, in a good 

 soil and situation, will, in seventy- 

 five years -from the acorn, yield a 

 ton of timber. The same oak, at 

 one hundred and fifty years old, 

 will yield about eight tons of 

 timber, or twelve loads of square 

 timber. To build a 74-gun ship 

 requires about 2000 tons, which, 

 at the rate of a load and a half to 

 a ton, would give 3000 loads of 

 timber, and would, consequently, 

 require 2000 trees of seventy- 

 five years' growth, or 250 of one 

 hundred and fifty years' growth. 

 It has also been calculated that, 



TEACHING. 211 



as not more than forty oaks can 

 stand upon an acre, fifty acres 

 are required to produce the oak- 

 wood necessary for every 74-gun 

 ship.* 



It is not the erect, stately tree, that is always 

 the most useful in ship-building ; but frequently 

 the crooked one, forming short turns and 

 elbows, which shipwrights and carpenters com- 

 monly call knee-timbers. This, too, is generally 

 the most picturesque. Nor is it the straight, 

 tall stem, whose fibres run in parallel lines, that 

 is most useful in bearing burdens; but that 

 whose sinews are twisted, and spirally com- 

 bined. 



It is through age that the oak acquires the 

 greatest beauty, which often continues in- 

 creasing even with decay. Spenser has given 

 a good picture of an oak, just verging to its last 

 condition : — 



" A huge oak, dry and dead, 



Still clad with reliques of its trophies old, 

 Lifting to heaven its aged, hoary head ; 

 Whose foot on earth hath got but feeble hold, 

 And half disbowelled stands above the ground, 

 With wreathed roots, and naked arms, 

 And trunk all rotten and unsound." 



As a landscape tree the oak is suited to the 

 grandest, and may be introduced to the most 

 pastoral situations. It adds new dignity to the 

 ruined tower and Gothic arch; by stretching 

 its wild moss-grown branches athwart their 

 ivied walls, it gives them a kind of majesty 

 coeval with itself ; at the same time, its pro- 

 priety is still preserved, if its arms are thrown 

 over the purling brook, or the mantling pool, 

 where it beholds 



"Its reverend image in the expanse below. "f 



That very useful substance, 

 cork, is the bark of a species of 

 oak% common in the southern 

 parts of Spain, France, and Italy. 

 When the tree is fifteen years 

 old, it may be barked for eight 

 years successively ; and the qua- 

 lity of the bark improves with 

 the age of the tree. When 

 stripped from the tree, the bark 

 is piled in heaps in water, and 

 loaded with heavy stones, to 

 flatten it. It is then dried, and 

 packed in bales, for carriage. 



The beech is supposed to de- 

 rive its name from the Saxon 



* Phily'e History of Progress, iu Great Brii^. 

 t (J il pin's Forest ftceiwiy. 

 % Querent tuber. 



